BY 

FRANK  HARRIS 

Elder  Conklin  and  Other  Stories 

MONTES   THE    MaTADOR 

Unpath'd  Waters 
The  Veils  of  Isis 


The  Bomb 
Great  Days 


The  Man  Shakespeare 
The  Women  of  Shakespeare 
Shakespeare  and  His  Love  (Play) 


Contemporary  Portraits 


Love  in  Youth  (in  Press) 

Oscar  Wilde:  His  Life  and  Confessions 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Daventrv  (Drama) 


ENGLAND 

OR 

GERMANY 


BY 

FRANK    HARRIS 


NEW    YORK 

THE  WILMARTH  PRESS 

835    BROADWAY 

MCMXV 


Copyright,  1915 

BY 

Frank  Harris 


s 


3D  S" 5-3 


CONTENTS 


M 


ENGLAND   OR   GERMANY-? 


Chapter  Page 

Foreword 4 

^         I.     Christian  Morality  and  the  War 11 

CM       II.  The  Conflict  of  Ideals:  English  and  Ger- 

""^  man  22 

Q_ 

to     III.     England's  Oligarchy 35 

IV.     England's  Laws 48 

V.     English  Justice 64 

>- 
a 
-i     VI.    The  German  Nation  and  Its  Ideal 81 

^  VII.     Paris  in  the  First  Weeks  of  War 106 

a: 

yVIII.    The  Censorship  and  Its  Effects 132 

^    IX.     Who  Will  Win  in  the  War? 147 

X.  The  "Soul  of  Goodness  in  Things  Evil"    166 

JCI.  Some  Effects  of  the  War  upon  America  177 


♦"TO/SCV-'^'O 


rso.li 


FOREWORD 

Some  of  the  best  heads  in  the  world  have  written 
about  this  war,  and  yet  no  one  stands  out  as  having 
approached  impartiality.  The  first  half  dozen  sen- 
tences always  show  on  which  side  the  sympathies  of 
the  writer  are  engaged.  The  Germans  all  believe 
that  they  have  been  attacked:  Herr  Von  Jagow  de- 
clares that  the  plot  against  them  was  got  up  by  Eng- 
land; Hauptman  is  confident  that  all  Germans  feel 
they  are  in  the  right;  Harden  asserts  that  Germany 
is  a  law  to  herself.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Allies 
consider  Germany  as  the  aggressor:  Anatole  France 
throws  down  his  pen  and  enlists  at  nearly  seventy  to 
fight  the  "barbarians";  Wells  professes  to  regard  the 
Germans  as  "inferior"  beings;  Sir  Edward  Grey  be- 
lieves that  they  desire  "universal  domination";  even 
Bernard  Shaw  appears  to  have  regretted  his  attempt 
to  see  things  as  they  really  are  and  agrees  that  the 
Germans  must  be  crushed.  And  now  comes  M.  Fa- 
guet,  eager  to  show  that  a  really  eminent  literary 
critic  may  also  be  blinded  by  prejudice. 

He  begins  by  stating  that  the  Germans  are  hated 
by  all  nations,  and  he  infers  therefrom  that  they  are 
hateworthy,  lacking  at  least  in  amiable  qualities. 
The  inference  is  plausible,  but  hardly  more.  M.  Fa- 
guet  appears  to  have  no  notion  of  the  fact  that  men 
are  apt  to  hate  their  superiors  just  as  they  like  their 
inferiors;  in  proportion  as  a  man  rises  above  the  or- 
dinary he  is  sure  to  be  disliked.    That  is  the  lesson 


FOREWORD  5 

of  all  genius:  Socrates  was  hated  in  Athens  not  be- 
cause he  was  unamiable,  not  because  he  "corrupted 
the  youth,"  as  his  indictment  phrased  it;  but  because 
he  was  more  reasonable,  wiser,  braver  and  more 
pious  than  other  men.  We  mortals  crown  our  great- 
est with  thorns.  The  Germans  are  hated  because 
they  have  done  great  things  in  the  last  twenty  years; 
they  are  not  only  strong  in  a  military  sense,  but  they 
have  shown  themselves  as  successful  in  business  as 
in  music  and  philosophy.  Their  population  and 
wealth  have  grown  by  leaps  and  bounds,  and,  strange 
to  say,  they  have  been  wise  enough  at  the  same  time 
to  do  away  with  poverty.  Much  less  would  have 
sufficed  to  earn  them  general  dislike,  even  if  their 
manners  had  been  as  urbane  and  distinguished  as 
they  are  reputed  to  be  rude  and  aggressive. 

Partisans,  especially  English-speaking  partisans, 
are  pretty  sure  to  condemn  this  book  of  mine  as  if 
it  were  written  in  a  spirit  of  bitter  prejudice.  There 
is  probably  an  inclination  in  me  to  take  the  weaker 
side,  the  side  of  those  who  have  the  odds  against 
them,  for  I  have  often  noticed  this  inclination  in 
other  Celts;  but  this  tendency,  if  it  exists,  is  not  the 
bias  usual  among  American  writers.  In  self-justifi- 
cation I  say  that  those  who  would  stand  upright 
must  lean  against  the  prevalent  wind  in  proportion 
to  its  strength.  Of  course,  one  may  lean  too  far  and 
lose  balance;  if  I  have  done  that,  it  is  involuntary 
and  I  shall  have  to  pay  for  the  folly. 

One  curious  fact  has  given  me  a  good  deal  of  con- 
fidence. I  had  practically  written  this  book  before  I 
came  across  the  "Englische  Fragmente"  of  Heine.  I 
was  astounded  to  find  that  the  conclusions  to  which 
Heine  came  after  visiting  England  three-quarters  of  a 
century  ago  were  almost  exactly  the  conclusions 
which  had  gradually  forced  themselves  in  on  me  and 
I  had  set  down  after  living  and  working  twenty-five 
years  in  the  country.     Now  Heine  was  a  Jew,  and 


/ 


6  FOREWORD 

apt,  as  most  Jews  are,  to  honor  success  and  material 
prosperity  such  as  England  possesses,  unduly;  yet 
Heine  condemns  English  laws  and  the  modern  Eng- 
lish ideals  as  passionately  as  I  do:  Jew  and  Celt  ex- 
amining the  subject  from  opposite  viewpoints  and 
arriving  at  the  same  result! 

We  both  condemn  the  English  oligarchy,  English 
snobbishness  and  English  hypocrisy;  we  were  both 
struck  with  horror  by  the  incredible  cruelty  with 
which  the  English  treat  the  poor,  and  the  unimagin- 
able savagery  of  their  laws,  mainly  directed  against 
the  weak.  It  v/as  Heine  who  taught  Matthew  Ar- 
nold to  see  the  "degradation  of  the  English  working 
class,"  "the  ignorance  and  sordid  narrow-mindedness 
of  their  middle-class,"  and  the  "barbarianism"  of 
their  nobility.  Heine  left  England,  he  tells  us,  to  get 
away  from  "gentlemen"  and  live  among  ordinary 
knaves  and  fools  as  the  only  man  with  a  clear  under- 
standing of  human  squalor. 

Yet,  though  I  agree  with  Heine  in  his  condemna- 
tion of  much  in  England,  I  differ  from  him  in  having 
some  hope.  The  vices  of  the  English  governing  class 
and  the  savagery  of  their  laws  only  serve  to  set  in 
relief  the  fact  that  such  of  the  working-class  as  en- 
joy decent  conditions  of  life  are  among  the  finest 
specimens  of  humanity  to  be  met  with  anywhere. 
There  is,  so  to  speak,  a  well  of  pure  loving-kindness 
about  the  heart  of  them  which  is  amazing  and  a 
sense  of  humor  as  well.  What  shall  be  said  of  that 
English  soldier  who,  after  an  unsuccessful  sally 
against  the  German  trenches,  called  out  to  his  foes: 

"Don't  be  downhearted,  Dutchies;  you'll  get  home 
yet." 

It  is  my  admiration  of  such  Englishmen  that  lends 
passion  to  my  hope  that  there  may  be  a  social  revo- 
lution in  Great  Britain  as  an  outcome  of  this  war,  a 
revolution  which  will  put  an  end  forever  to  the  self- 
ish, senseless  domination  of  the  titled  class  and  set 


FOREWORD  7 

free  at  length  the  generous  humanity  of  the  common 
people.  If  it  be  partisanship  to  plead  for  this,  then 
I  am  guilty  of  passionate  partisanship;  but  not  other- 
wise, I  believe.  In  fine,  I  belong  as  Victor  Hugo 
said  he  did,  to  the  party  of  Revolutionary  civiliza- 
tion; the  party  which  will  control  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury; and  out  of  which  must  come  the  United  States 
of  Europe  first,  and  then  the  United  States  of  the 
World. 

And  in  order  to  hasten  the  good  time  and  bring 
the  dream  to  consummation  we  should  all  try  to  be 
pitiful  to  the  faults  of  others  and  pitiless  to  our  own. 

How  conceited,  how  vainglorious  we  must  be  to 
blame  this  or  that  nation  for  causing  this  world-war,  i 
without  realizing  that  we  ourselves  are  all  compact 
of  the  very  faults  which  have  led  inevitably  to  the 
catastrophe.  Greediness,  combativeness,  vanity, 
cruelty,  we  have  all  the  vices  of  the  fighter,  and  our 
faults  are  manifestly  stronger  than  the  correspond-  ' 
ing  virtues:  self-denial,  gentleness  and  loving  kind- 
ness. 

Instead  of  blaming  other  men  for  savage  selfish- 
ness, why  should  we  not  try  to  realize  how  easily  the 
war  might  have  been  averted  if  European  statesmen 
had  consulted  their  higher  natures,  and  acted  to  the 
best  in  them.  Austria  and  Russia  have  no  real  rea- 
son to  quarrel:  Constantinople  and  Salonica  can  be 
used  by  them  now  as  ports  for  everything  except 
making  war  and  the  building  of  warships.  Germany 
should  long  ago  have  restored  the  French  parts  of 
Alsace-Lorraine  to  France,  and  so  founded  peace  on 
justice  and  goodwill.  England,  too,  might  have  freed 
India  and  Egypt  or  confided  them  to  international 
guidance,  and  could  have  given  South  Africa  to  Ger- 
many as  a  field  of  colonization,  or  if  that  were  too 
high  an  effort  of  unselfishness,  she  might  have 
helped  Germany  to  build  up  a  great  colony  in  Cen- 
tral Africa,  or  the  United  States  might  have  aided 


/ 


f 


8  FOREWORD 

the  Kaiser  to  establish  south  of  the  Rio  Negro  an 
oversea  Germany  with  the  consent  of  the  Argentine 
Republic.  For  surely  a  German  experiment  in  colo- 
nization would  be  worth  studying  and  would  prob- 
ably serve  as  a  spur  to  effort  throughout  the  world. 

Such  arrangements  as  these  would  benefit  every- 
one and  would  be  a  thousand  times  more  profitable 
than  arming  ourselves  to  fight,  to  say  nothing  of 
really  fighting. 

It  is  surely  impossible  to  shut  one's  eyes  to  the 
fact  that  it  is  the  two  great  Germanic  peoples,  the 
English  and  the  Germans  and  their  striving  for  the 
first  place  which  brought  about  the  war  and  is  now 
the  chief  obstacle  to  a  world-peace.  Is  the  Kaiser 
or  Mr.  Asquith  the  more  humane?  Who  will  first 
hold  out  his  hand?  If  either  of  them  went  to  coun- 
sel with  his  own  soul,  or  even  with  the  lowest  self- 
interest  he  would  see  that  the  first  to  propose  peace 
would  thereby  show  himself  the  wiser,  I  cannot  be- 
lieve that  Mr.  Asquith  has  much  sympathy  with  the 
land-greed  which  has  driven  the  English  oligarchy 
in  our  day  to  annex  Burma  and  Egypt  and  make 
war  on  the  South  African  republics  when  already  in 
Canada  and  Australia  the  English  have  larger  pos- 
sessions than  they  know  how  to  use.  For  genera- 
tions England  fights  and  intrigues  to  prevent  Russia 
getting  to  Constantinople;  now  she  gives  up  her  tra- 
ditional policy  in  this  respect.  Yet  stupid  as  that 
policy  was,  it  was  not  so  stupid  as  the  belated  at- 
tempt to  stay  the  expansion  of  Germany. 

And  Germany  in  fighting  England  and  France,  is 
only  helping  to  make  Russia  the  Master  of  Europe. 
The  hate-policy  of  England  and  Germany  from  every 
point  of  view  is  worse  than  idiotic. 

In  this  conflict  France  has  shown  herself  less  ea- 
ger for  war  than  any  of  the  other  countries,  though 
she  has  the  best  reason,  or  at  any  rate  the  most  ob- 
vious and  avowable  reason,  for  engaging  in  it.    To- 


FOREWORD  9 

day,  too,  France  would  make  peace  on  more  reason- 
able terms  than  any  of  the  other  nations,  though  she 
is  as  confident  as  any  of  them  in  her  strength  and 
ultimate  victory. 

The  truth  is  that  in  France  the  sense  of  justice  is 
more  active  than  in  any  other  country  in  the  world. 
Thanks  to  this  sense  and  to  the  consequent  parti- 
tion of  land  in  the  Revolution,  there  is  hardly  any 
poverty  in  France,  and  wealth  is  more  widely  dif- 
fused there  than  elsewhere.  On  the  other  hand, 
France  does  more  for  art  and  artists  and  the  "intel- 
lectuals" generally  than  any  country  except  Ger- 
many, and  if  she  prefers  a  measure  of  well-being  and 
happiness  to  large  families  and  energetic  growth, 
who  shall  blame  her?  It  is  this  "sagesse"  which  one 
admires  in  the  French.  Everyone  loves  France  be- 
cause her  follies  even  are  generous,  and  more  than 
any  other  people  the  French  cherish  the  humane 
ideal. 

And  Russia?  Whichever  side  wins,  whatever  hap- 
pens, Russia  is  almost  sure  to  profit  in  a  material 
sense  through  the  war;  but  it  is  the  Tsar  and  his  y 
counsellors  who  are  fighting  and  not  Russia;  Russia  / 
as  yet  is  without  national  policy  or  purpose;  the  brain 
and  the  heart  of  her  not  geared  properly  to  direct 
the  huge  body.  Thirty  years  ago  I  wrote  that 
sooner  or  later  Russia  would  express  herself  in  a 
new  birth  in  religion  or  a  new  form  of  society.  It 
is  perhaps  the  mission  of  Russia,  Holy  Russia  as 
her  children  call  her,  to  found  the  United  States  of 
Europe. 


Shortly  before  the  war,  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  in 
his  book  entitled  "Social  Forces  in  England 
and  America,"  wrote  as  follows: 

"We  in  Great  Britain  are  now  intensely  jealous 
of  Germany.  We  are  intensely  jealous  of  Ger- 
many not  only  because  the  Germans  outnumber 
us,  and  have  a  much  larger  and  more  diversified 
country  than  ours,  and  lie  in  the  very  heart  and 
body  of  Europe,  but  because  in  the  last  hundred 
years,  while  we  have  fed  on  platitudes  and  vanity, 
they  have  had  the  energy  and  humility  to  develop 
a  splendid  system  of  national  education,  to  toil  at 
science  and  art  and  literature,  to  develop  social 
organization,  to  master  and  better  our  methods  of 
business  and  industry,  and  to  clamber  above  us  in 
the  scale  of  civilisation.  This  has  humiliated  and 
irritated  rather  than  chastened  us."  Mr.  Wells 
informed  us  further  that  one  must  learn  German 
"if  one  would  be  abreast  of  scientific  knowledge 
and  philosophical  thougJit,  or  see  many  good  plays 
or  understand  the  contemporary  mind." 

Since  the  commencement  of  the  war,  Mr.  Wells 
has  changed  his  tune.    He  now  says : 

"That  trampling,  drilling  foolery  in  the  heart  of 
Europe  that  has  arrested  civilization  for  forty 
years,  German  itnperialism  and  German  militar- 
ism, has  struck  its  inevitable  blow." 


10 


England  or  Germany 

? 

CHAPTER   I 
Christian  Morality  and  the  War 

For  Christian  nations  waging  war  with  each 
other  to  talk  of  morality  is  mere  hypocrisy. 
This  war  is  a  proof,  if  proof  were  needed,  of  the 
bankruptcy  of  Christian  morals  and  of  the  weak 
hold  the  unselfish  teaching  of  Jesus  has  on 
the  modern  world.  Science,  with  its  "struggle 
for  existence"  and  "survival  of  the  fittest" ;  sci- 
ence, which  has  reinforced  Paganism  with  its 
Nietzschean  ideal,  is  the  inspirer  of  the  present 
struggle.  Yet  so  strong  is  habit  and  so  pro- 
found the  influence  of  the  Gospel  that  the  first 
weeks  of  the  war  were  filled  with  discussions 
as  to  the  moral  guilt  or  innocence  of  the  various 
nations  engaged — such  mouth-honor,  at  least, 
was  paid  to  the  higher  law. 

It  seems  to  me  almost  a  waste  of  time  to  at- 
tempt to  apportion  moral  responsibility  for 
what  even  the  German  Crown  Prince,  in  an 
interview  at  the  end  of  November,  1914,  called 

II 


12        ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

"the  most  stupid,  senseless  and  unnecessary 
war  of  modern  times." 

Yet  something  must  be  said  on  the  matter, 
for  the  American  bias  in  favor  of  the  Allies  is 
continually  being  used  as  a  proof  that  right  is 
on  that  side.  In  a  recent  speech,  Lord 
Bryce,  whilom  British  Ambassador  in  Wash- 
ington, asserted  that  the  sympathy  of  the 
Americans  for  the  cause  of  the  Allies  was 
a  sympathy  based  on  moral  grounds  and  there- 
fore doubly  valuable.  Of  course,  fair-minded 
people  knew  that  American  sympathy  had  no 
such  foundation,  but  was  in  reality  an  unrea- 
soned prepossession  due  mainly  to  the  fact  that 
Americans  and  Britons  speak  the  same  tongue. 
The  tie  of  speech  has  once  more  proved  itself 
"light  as  air  and  binding  as  iron,"  stronger  even 
than  any  bond  of  blood  or  intimacy  of  inter- 
course. Russian  Jews  are  all  praying  and 
fighting  for  "Holy  Russia";  on  the  other  side 
of  an  imaginary  line,  equally  pious  Jews  are 
passionately  fighting  for  the  "Vaterland,"  while 
the  Belgian  and  French  Jews  pray  and  fight  in 
order  that  France  may  win  and  Germany  be 
dismembered.  The  tie  of  language  is  stronger 
than  that  of  race,  even  when  the  racial  tie  is 
backed  by  religion,  secular  life  in  a  Ghetto 
and  immemorial  customs.  It  is  the  most  dur- 
able of  all  bonds  between  men.  And  in  this 
war  the  great  bond  of  language  which  always 
tends  to  assimilate  American  opinion  to  Brit- 
ish opinion  is  still  further  strengthened  in  many 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?         13 

ways.  American  papers  share  the  expense  of 
getting  news  with  London  papers  and  use  Brit- 
ish correspondents  as  freely  as  American.  The 
chief  New  York  journals,  like  all  London  jour- 
nals, belong  to  the  capitalist  class,  and  are  di- 
rected by  the  same  self-interest.  And  last  but 
not  least,  whenever  an  American  paper  pub- 
lishes an  article  greatly  in  favor  of  the  Allies,  it 
can  reckon  that  the  article  will  be  reproduced 
in  the  English  press  and  praised  beyond  meas- 
ure. The  effect  of  such  genial  eulogy  on  writers 
and  editors  is  prodigious.  The  great  financial 
institutions,  too,  and  the  principal  banks  in 
New  York  and  London  are  intimately  allied 
and  are  accustomed  to  act  in  concert. 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  Ameri- 
can opinion,  particularly  at  the  outset,  should 
have  been  captured  by  British  arguments  and 
dominated  by  British  sympathies. 

But  already  one  sees  a  gradual  swinging 
round  of  American  feeling  in  favor  of  Ger- 
many, chiefly  because  Americans  admire  effi- 
ciency above  all  things,  and  it  will  not  be  long 
before  the  assertion  of  Lord  Bryce  will  be  seen 
here  to  be  a  piece  of  special  pleading,  an  as- 
sumption, indeed,  out  of  all  relation  to  fact. 

Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  has  already  made  fun  of 
the  British  "bulldog  breed"  trying  to  masquer- 
ade as  "meek  gazelles";  "incorrigibly  com- 
bative and  snobbish,"  he  calls  the  British  aris- 
tocratic caste  and  condemns  British  diplomacy 
for  taking  sides  with  the  Russian  autocracy 


14        ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

against  the  German  people.  It  is  clear  to  him, 
as  to  every  impartial  mind,  that  that  is  one 
meaning  of  this  war. 

I  must  confess  that  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
war  I  cherished  a  certain  confidence  in  Sir 
Edward  Grey  and  the  violation  of  the  neutral- 
ity of  Belgium  by  the  Germans  inclined  me  to 
the  side  of  the  Allies  and  made  me  regard  the 
Germans  as  the  aggressors. 

The  publication  of  the  British  "White 
Papers"  cleverly  edited  as  the  book  was,  proved 
that  the  violation  of  the  neutrality  of  Belgium 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  resolve  of  Great 
Britain  to  support  France.  When  this  became 
clear  to  me  I  resented  the  pretences  of  Sir  Ed- 
ward Grey,  whom  I  had  hitherto  trusted.  The 
following  despatch  in  the  British  "White 
Papers"  is  conclusive  on  this  point,  and  most 
informative  besides,  to  one  familiar  with  the 
reticence  of  official  England : 

"Sir  Edward  Grey  to  Sir  E.  Goschen.  Lon- 
don Foreign  Office,  August  i,  1914. 

V  "Sir:   I  told  the  German  Ambassador  to-day 

that  the  reply  of  the  German  Government  with 
regard  to  the  neutrality  of  Belgium  was  a  mat- 
ter of  very  great  regret,  because  the  neutrality 
of  Belgium  affected  feeling  in  this  country. 
...  He  asked  me  whether,  if  Germany  gave  a 
promise  not  to  violate  Belgian  neutrality,  we 

^"  would  engage  to  remain  neutral.    I  replied  that 

I  could  not  say  that :  our  hands  were  still  free 
and  we  were  considering  what  our  attitude 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?        15 

should  be.  .  .  .  The  Ambassador  pressed  me 
as  to  whether  I  could  not  formulate  conditions 
on  which  we  would  remain  neutral.  He  even 
suggested  that  the  integrity  of  France  and  her 
colonies  might  be  guaranteed.  I  said  that  I 
felt  obliged  to  refuse  definitely  any  promise  to 
remain  neutral  .  .  .  and  I  could  only  say  that 
we  must  keep  our  hands  free." 

Now,  if  one  reads  that  despatch  of  Sir  Ed- 
ward Grey  carefully,  one  sees  that  he  was  sur- 
prised by  the  lengths  to  which  Germany  was 
willing  to  go  in  order  to  avoid  complicating 
the  struggle  with  Russia,  by  a  war  also  with 
France  and  Britain.  So  far  from  being  arro- 
gant or  overbearing,  the  German  ambassador 
"even"  suggested  that  the  neutrality  of  France 
and  her  colonies  might  be  guaranteed  and 
"pressed  me  as  to  whether  I  could  not  formu- 
late conditions  on  which  we  would  remain 
neutral." 

Germany  thereby  said  to  England  in  effect — 
"tell  us  how  to  insure  your  neutrality ;  we  shall 
accept  your  conditions  if  possible."  Britain, 
by  the  mouth  of  Sir  Edward  Grey,  "refused 
definitely  to  remain  neutral"  on  any  conditions. 
The  violation  of  the  neutrality  of  Belgium  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  decision  of 
Great  Britain.  Sir  Edward  Grey  himself  ad- 
mits that  categorically. 

All  European  nations  are  much  on  the  same 
level  when  it  comes  to  respecting  promises  or 
treaties.     Russia  violated  the  treaty  of  Paris; 


i6        ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

Austria  tore  up  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  without 
even  an  apology.  England  pledged  herself  not 
to  interfere  in  the  internal  affairs  of  the  Trans- 
vaal and  her  promises  to  evacuate  Egypt  were 
so  numerous  that  they  excited  derision. 

The  French  have  attempted  to  prove,  in  a 
Second  Yellow  Book,  that  the  German  Kaiser 
v^'as  turned  into  an  advocate  of  war  by  the 
Agadir  incident,  which  he  is  said  to  have  con- 
sidered as  a  defeat  for  German  diplomacy,  and 
that  the  French  from  the  beginning  to  the  end 
were  lambs  forced  to  defend  themselves  against 
German  wolves.  Much  as  I  love  France  and 
greatly  as  I  admire  the  French,  I  cannot  ac- 
cept this  view.  It  becomes  necessary  to  tell 
the  truth  about  that  occurrence. 

At  the  time  of  the  Agadir  affair,  M.  Caillaux 
was  Premier  of  France  and  intensely  patriotic 
and  high-spirited.  He  admitted  to  me  in  con- 
versations (which  he  allowed  me  to  use ;  and  I 
did  use  by  publishing  the  gist  of  them  in  a 
London  paper)  that  in  191 1  he  offered  Great 
Britain,  on  three  several  occasions,  to  break  off 
all  negotiations  with  the  Germans  over  Agadir 
if  Sir  Edward  Grey  would  promise  to  support 
France  vAth  arms.  "We  were  eager  to  fight," 
he  declared  boldly,  and  continued: 

"Sir  Edward  Grey  told  M.  Cambon  again 
and  again  that  Great  Britain  would  support 
France  if  France  were  attacked,  or  indeed,  if 
France  could  keep  public  opinion  on  her  side. 
He  laid  great  stress,"  said  M.  Caillaux,  "on 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?        17 

this  point  which  seemed  to  me  insignificant; 
but  parliamentary  diplomacy,  I  suppose,  tied 
his  hands.  Of  course,  I  could  not  act  without 
a  definite  and  unconditional  promise  of  sup- 
port." 

That  is.  Sir  Edward  Grey  in  191 1,  as  in  1914, 
was  more  than  willing  to  fight;  but  wanted  to 
have  public  opinion  on  his  side;  "to  keep  up 
appearances"  at  all  costs.  And  France  when 
backed  by  Russia  and  England  was  eager  for 
the  conflict. 

But  if  it  is  clear,  as  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  has 
shown,  that  Sir  Edward  Grey  could  have  main- 
tained peace  in  1914  by  simply  telling  Russia 
he  would  not  support  her  if  she  mobilized, 
surely  it  is  equally  clear  that  the  German  Em- 
peror might  have  kept  the  peace  if  he  had 
agreed  to  Sir  Edward  Grey's  proposal  to  sub- 
mit the  Austro-Servian  dispute  to  arbitration. 
Indeed,  in  some  respects,  German  diplomacy  is 
the  most  difficult  to  defend  in  the  whole  im- 
broglio. Here  is  the  position.  In  the  last 
twenty  years  Germany  has  grown  in  popula- 
tion, in  wealth  and  in  power,  in  the  most  ex- 
traordinary way.  While  the  French  popula- 
tion has  been  stationary,  the  German  popula- 
tion has  increased  from  forty-five  millions  to 
over  seventy  millions.  If  Germany  had  only 
kept  the  peace  for  twenty  years  more  she  would 
have  had  ninety  millions  of  people  and  France 
would  have  been  hopelessly  dwarfed.  It  was 
Germany's  cue  not  to  be  drawn  into  a  quarrel ; 


i8        ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

every  year  was  increasing  her  relative  power 
and  strengthening,  too,  her  vital  contention 
that  a  nation  growing  in  this  way  must  not  be 
cribbed  and  coffined  in  a  small  country  no 
larger  than  France.  Peace  and  diplomatic  ne- 
gotiations were  Germany's  game;  but  Ger- 
many, too,  was  eager  to  draw  the  sword  and 
submit  the  decision  to  force. 

The  truth  is,  all  the  peoples  engaged  in  this 
war  are  almost  equally  to  blame.  Behind  all 
the  moral  pretenses  there  was  hard  national 
selfishness.  Russia  was  determined  to  support 
Servia  and  thus  add  to  its  already  immense  ter- 
ritory by  forcing  its  way  to  Constantinople  and 
the  Mediterranean;  the  Germans,  hemmed  in 
on  all  sides,  as  in  a  straight  waistcoat,  felt 
compelled  to  find  an  outlet  to  the  sea  and  colo- 
nies which  they  might  fill  with  men  of  their 
own  blood;  France  was  eager  for  revenge  and 
resolved  to  win  back  Alsace-Lorraine;  and 
England — 

Why  was  Sir  Edward  Grey  so  determined 
not  to  remain  neutral  under  any  circumstances, 
so  resolved  to  take  up  arms  against  Germany 
in  August,  1914,  when  Germany  had  to  defend 
herself  against  both  Russia  and  France?  No 
one  who  has  followed  British  policy  in  the  past 
can  remain  for  a  moment  in  doubt!  British 
policy  has  often  been  admired  just  because  it 
has  had  only  one  object,  self-interest. 

Long  ago,  Ranke  showed  that  it  has  always 
been  a  matter  of  vital  importance  for  Great 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?        19 

Britain  to  keep  command  of  the  seas.  For  that 
reason  she  waged  war  against  Spain  and  broke 
the  power  of  the  Invincible  Armada.  A  little 
later,  she  defeated  Protestant  Holland,  and 
half  a  century  afterwards  began  the  great  war 
which  lasted,  with  interludes  of  peace,  for  more 
than  a  century  and  ended  with  the  defeat  of 
France  as  a  maritime  rival. 

As  soon  as  Germany  began  to  build  a  navy 
to  protect  her  mercantile  marine,  the  feelings 
of  Great  Britain  towards  her  underwent  a  sea- 
change.  Up  to  that  moment  she  had  been 
friendly  though  somewhat  annoyed  by  the  as- 
tounding growth  of  German  trade  and  com- 
merce. Now  at  once  Great  Britain  resolved  to 
build  two  war  ships  to  each  one  of  Germany's, 
and  when  she  found  this  costly,  she  proposed 
to  rest  on  her  oars,  if  Germany  would  do  the 
same  and  consent  thereby  always  to  remain 
vastly  inferior  in  naval  strength. 

Again  and  again,  by  the  mouth  of  Mr.  Win- 
ston Churchill,  Great  Britain  voiced  her  desire 
to  remain  mistress  of  the  seas  at  the  smallest 
possible  expenditure.  When  Germany  replied 
that  she  had  no  aggressive  designs  but  required 
a  navy  for  protection  and  would  not  accept  dic- 
tation as  to  its  strength,  Great  Britain  began  to 
construct  a  new  naval  base  at  Forsyth  and  sta- 
tioned a  fleet  in  the  North  Sea. 

One  incident  occurred  which  shows  the  whole 
position  in  the  dry  light  of  unconscious  humor. 
It  was  habitually  asserted  in  England  that  Ger- 


20        ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

man  trade  was  growing  because  the  Germans 
imitated  English  goods  and  passed  off  inferior 
and  cheaper  articles  for  the  better  class  pro- 
ductions of  Great  Britain.  On  the  other  hand, 
British  consular  agents  reported  that  German 
trade  was  prospering  because  the  German  man- 
ufacturers studied  foreign  markets  and  were 
more  intelligent  and  better  informed  than  Brit- 
ish manufacturers,  and  were  served  besides  by 
German  travellers  who  thought  nothing  of 
learning  two  or  three  foreign  languages  in  or- 
der to  win  clients.  But  it  was  more  consoling 
to  British  pride  to  declare  German  goods  infer- 
ior and  cheaper ;  and  at  length  Parliament  took 
the  matter  up  and  in  its  wisdom  decreed  that 
all  goods  brought  into  Great  Britain  and  her 
colonies  should  be  plainly  marked  with  their 
place  of  origin.  Every  effort  was  made  in  the 
press  to  turn  the  stamp,  "made  in  Germany" 
into  a  symbol  of  contempt.  But,  alas,  one  soon 
found  that  the  only  knives  and  razors  that 
would  cut  were  all  stamped  with  the  hateful 
mark,  "made  in  Germany."  In  every  depart- 
ment this  trade-mark  became  a  badge  of  honor, 
and  very  soon  the  English  manufacturers  went 
about  crying  to  have  the  law  repealed. 

Year  by  year  the  industries  of  Germany  and 
the  over-sea  trade  of  Germany  grew  as  no  trade 
had  ever  grown  before,  and  year  by  year  the 
jealousy  of  Great  Britain  kept  pace  with  it.  In 
cool  blood,  before  the  war,  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  ac- 
knowledged and  deplored  this  sordid  but  nat- 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?        21 

ural  meanness.  British  journal  after  journal 
turned  from  admiration  of  Germany  to  envy 
and  dislike  and  the  dislike  grew  quickly  to  ha- 
tred and  loathing.  Soon  the  feeling  became 
active,  and  in  spite  of  Fashoda,  Great  Britain 
struck  up  a  treaty  with  France  in  order  that 
she  might  free  her  fleets  from  the  Mediterran- 
ean and  be  able  to  concentrate  them  opposite 
the  German  coast.  From  that  moment  on,  it 
was  only  a  question  of  time  when  Great  Brit- 
ain would  declare  war  on  Germany.  Bernard 
Shaw  is  absolutely  justified  when  he  tears  to 
pieces  the  hypocritical  pretence  that  Great 
Britain  is  fighting  for  poor  little  Belgium  or 
treaty  rights  or  even  for  the  balance  of  power 
in  Europe.  Living  in  England  he  can  hardly 
be  blamed  for  not  telling  the  whole  truth — 
that  Great  Britain  has  taken  up  arms  to  crush 
a  successful  trade  rival  and  for  no  other  reason. 
As  soon  as  war  was  declared  the  Times  and 
Daily  Mail  and  many  other  London  papers 
threw  off  the  mask  and  published  column  after 
column  showing  how  this,  that  and  the  other 
department  of  trade  could  now  be  taken  from 
the  Germans.  The  facts  are  too  plain  to  be 
disputed.  In  private  life,  for  the  last  ten  years, 
Englishmen  of  the  governing  class  have  ad- 
mitted the  trade  jealousy  and  its  inevitable 
consequences  with  smiling  complacence. 


CHAPTER   II 
The  Conflict  of  Ideals:    English  and  German 

Lord  Bryce  asserts  that  this  war  is  a  conflict 
of  the  two  ideals  of  England  and  Germany. 
There  is  a  great  deal  to  be  said  for  his  state- 
ment, though  he  may  not  be  satisfied  with  the 
scientific  definition  of  it.  Let  us  examine  it 
impartially.  And,  first  of  all,  what  is  the  Eng- 
lish ideal? 

There  are  two  chief  ways  of  looking  at  Eng- 
land as  at  all  other  countries ;  as  she  sees  her- 
self and  as  others  see  her.  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett 
has  given  us  a  picture  of  her  as  she  sees  her- 
self, while  the  poet  Heine  long  ago  gave  us  a 
noteworthy  picture  of  her  as  others  see  her. 
Mr.  Arnold  Bennett  simply  asserts  that  Eng- 
land stands  for  freedom  and  free  institutions, 
while  Germany  is  under  the  heel  of  a  frightful 
military  despotism  which  threatens  the  peace 
of  mankind.    Mr.  Bennett  knows  no  German. 

When  I  asked  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  recently: 
what  he  knew  about  Germany  that  he  should 
condemn  her  so  absolutely,  he  told  me  that  his 
son's  tutor  had  been  a  German.  Sir  Edward 
Grey  was  not  ashamed  in  a  speech  made  so 
late  as  March  22nd,  to  declare  that  "the  Ger- 
man ideal  is  that  the  Germans  are  a  superior 
people  to  whom  all  things  are  lawful  and 
against  whom  resistance  is  unlawful." 


22 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?        23 

It  is  impossible  to  take  such  ignorant  parti- 
sanship seriously.  It  reminds  me  of  what  Doo- 
ley  said  to  Kennessy  at  the  beginning  of  our 
war  with  Spain,  "I  don't  have  any  more  use 
for  thim  Spaniards  than  what  you  have,  Hin- 
nessey ;  I've  never  known  one  of  'em." 

It  is  necessary  to  know  a  nation  before  one 
talks  of  it;  and  the  better  we  know  men,  the 
more  disinclined  we  are  to  lump  a  whole  peo- 
ple together  in  eulogy  or  condemnation.  Burke 
declared  that  it  was  impossible  to  frame  an 
indictment  against  a  nation. 

Mr.  Arnold  Bennett  appears  to  be  ignorant  of 
the  fact  that  of  the  nations  now  at  war,  Ger- 
many is  the  only  one  which  has  practically 
kept  the  peace  without  a  break  for  over  forty 
years  and  that  Great  Britain  spends  fifty  per 
cent  more  on  armaments  per  year  in  propor- 
tion to  her  population  than  Germany  spends. 
Besides,  the  military  caste  in  Germany  has  no 
power  to  be  compared  with  that  of  the  titled 
oligarchy  in  England. 

The  comparison  between  Britain  and  Ger- 
many needs  to  be  taken  in  hand  by  someone 
who  knows  both  countries  and  has  a  desire  to 
state  the  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth.  Let 
us  weigh,  first,  the  claim  of  England  to  stand 
for  liberty  and  all  that  liberty  means. 

In  popular  esteem  the  claim  rests  mainly  on 
the  fact  that  Great  Britain  was  the  first  coun- 
try to  free  her  negro  slaves  and  to  give  up  the 
slave-trade.     It  was  pointed  out  at  the  time, 


24        ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

that  after  losing  her  chief  North  American  col- 
onies, the  large  profits  Britain  had  been  mak- 
ing out  of  the  slave  traffic  had  fallen  away  to  a 
small  amount  and  that  by  freeing  her  slaves, 
she  only  wished  to  read  the  United  States  a 
lesson  which  would  cost  them  infinitely  more 
than  it  could  cost  her.  Besides,  the  twenty  mil- 
lion pounds  sterling  set  apart  to  compensate 
the  slave-holders  was  so  expended  that  while 
many  got  less  than  a  third  of  what  they  should 
have  received,  a  minority  was  rewarded  beyond 
reason.  Still,  in  spite  of  the  intrusion  of  mean 
motives  and  other  drawbacks,  the  act  was  a 
great  step  in  advance,  and  one  redounding  to 
Britain's  credit.  But,  after  all,  one  cannot  live 
forever  on  the  achievements  of  one's  grand- 
fathers; we  must  ask  how  England  stands  to- 
day in  regard  to  freedom. 

For  over  two  centuries,  from  Luther  to  Vol- 
taire, the  history  of  Europe  was  the  history  of 
the  assertion  of  the  individual  and  the  growing 
expansion  of  individual  rights.  It  was  natural 
that  England  should  take  the  lead  in  this  move- 
ment; for  England  as  an  island  was  protected 
from  outside  pressure  and  so  the  individuals 
forming  the  English  social  organism  tended  to 
fall  apart:  individualism  became  the  English 
creed.  "The  Englishman's  home"  was  vaunted 
as  "his  castle." 

So  long  as  this  centrifugal  tendency  showed 
itself  all  over  Christendom,  England  stood  for 
the  highest  civilization.    She  endowed  Europe 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?        25 

with  the  modern  Parliamentary  forms  of  self- 
government  and  taught  mankind  the  value  of 
freedom  and  free  institutions  in  which  the  in- 
dividual could  develop  all  his  energies  unhin- 
dered. While  this  ideal  was  being  assimilated, 
England  was  held  up  to  admiration  on  all 
hands  as  the  model  State. 

Moreover,  thanks  in  the  main  to  natural  ad- 
vantages, England  easily  took  the  lead  in  the 
modern  development  of  industry ;  she  founded 
the  factory  system  and  for  a  half  a  century  or 
more  was  in  the  van  of  the  world's  industrial 
and  commercial  progress. 

Just  as  the  individual  judgment  so  bepraised 
by  Luther,  ended  in  the  scepticism  of  Voltaire, 
so  this  unrestrained  individualism  within  the 
state  led  directly  to  anarchy,  and  came  to  an 
end  in  the  French  Revolution.  In  1793  the 
French  tried  to  limit  the  rights  of  the  individ- 
ual by  an  appeal  to  equality  and  the  welfare 
of  the  whole  body  politic.  In  economics  the 
theory  of  individualism  was  then  opposed  by 
socialism;  the  interests  of  the  individual  had 
to  be  limited  by  the  interests  of  the  many.  In 
chemistry,  about  the  same  time  the  atomic  the- 
ory was  merged  in  the  molecular  theory  and 
analytic  chemistry  having  been  pushed  as  far 
as  possible  was  superseded  by  synthetic  chem- 
istry. 

The  progress  of  humanity  is  rather  like  that 
of  a  skater  on  the  outside  edge :  as  soon  as  the 
rhythmic  curve  of  movement  takes  the  skater 


26        ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

away  from  the  line  of  progress  forward,  the 
swing  to  the  opposite  side  is  already  outlined. 

The  French  Revolution  marks  the  end  of 
the  centrifugal  movement:  a  centralizing  and 
centripetal  movement  then  took  its  place. 

The  antagonism  of  the  two  forces  was  prob- 
ably more  clearly  defined  in  the  Civil  War  in 
America  than  anywhere  else.  And  though  the 
United  States  are  freer  from  outside  pressure 
than  England  herself,  more  in  love  therefore 
with  outrageous  individualism  than  England, 
still  the  idea  of  the  nation,  the  claims  of  the 
whole  body  politic  proved  themselves  even  here 
stronger  than  the  rights  of  the  individual  or 
even  the  rights  of  any  state. 

This  same  centripetal  force,  or  centralizing 
tendency  showed  itself  all  through  the  nine- 
teenth century  and  from  one  end  of  Europe  to 
the  other  in  a  growth  of  national  feeling.  Pied- 
mont drew  the  Italian  states  together  and  Italy 
was  "rediviva";  in  the  same  way  Prussia  drew 
the  German  states  together  and  hammered 
them  into  one  on  the  anvil  of  war ;  giant  Rus- 
sia began  to  tingle  with  the  new  spirit  and  the 
freeing  of  her  serfs  was  the  thrill  of  her  nation- 
hood becoming  conscious  from  Petrograd  to 
Vladivostock ;  even  England  began  to  dream 
of  a  Greater  Britain. 

It  was  inevitable  that  Germany  ("pinched  in 
on  all  sides  by  enemies"  as  Bismarck  said) 
should  become  the  chief  exponent  of  this  cen- 
tralizing tendency,  this  intensification  of  na- 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?        27 

tional  feeling  and  the  national  ideal.  England 
as  an  island  naturally  stood  for  individual  free- 
dom ;  in  economics  for  Free  Trade,  for  the  ideal 
of  the  "all-round"  perfect  man;  whereas  Ger- 
many ringed  about  by  foes  was  compelled  to 
stand  for  the  idea  of  the  whole,  in  economics 
for  socialism,  for  the  ideal  of  the  "all-round" 
perfect  state. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century 
this  national  movement  was  quickened  chiefly 
through  the  extraordinary  growth  of  Russia 
and  the  United  States  of  America,  It  was  seen 
that  World  Empires  of  enormous  area  and  pop- 
ulation were  coming  into  being  which  must 
dwarf  nations  as  nations  had  dwarfed  clans  and 
village  communities — and  these  Empires  were 
held  together  by  language  and  not  by  race, 
the  centralizing  tendency  growing  steadily 
stronger. 

Manifestly,  Great  Britain  was  called  to  unite 
with  her  colonies  and  form  a  confederation  of 
British  States  and  so  enter  this  larger  compe- 
tition. But  this  new  movement  did  not  appeal 
to  England  strongly;  or  rather  did  not  appeal 
to  her  governing  class,  the  land-owning  oli- 
garchy which  directs  her  destinies.  She  hung 
back  hesitating  and  postponing  though  her  col- 
onies gave  her  every  possible  encouragement. 
Meanwhile,  Germany,  helped  by  the  pressure 
of  the  surrounding  nations  upon  her,  became 
more  and  more  the  exponent  of  centralizing 
force  and  took  the  lead. 


28        ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

In  every  respect  to-day  Germany  represents 
the  ideal  of  a  nation  as  perfectly  as  England 
ever  represented  the  ideal  of  a  perfect  individ- 
ual. Let  us  now  consider  these  two  ideals  a 
little  more  closely,  for  it  is  manifest  that  in 
themselves  they  are  both  worthy  and  must  ul- 
timately be  reconciled  and  harmonized. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  these  two  great  op- 
posing movements  in  politics  have  led  to  in- 
finite confusion  of  thought  and  unnecessary 
friction.  The  assertion  of  the  individual  has 
been  spoken  of  as  liberty,  whereas  in  fact  when 
pushed  to  an  extreme  it  leads  directly  to  the 
enslavement  of  all  the  weaker  individuals  in 
the  state  who  are  subjugated  by  the  few  strong. 
This  is  the  "open  secret"  first  seen  by  Goethe 
which  Carlyle  was  never  tired  of  preaching; 
Coleridge,  too,  wrote  of  those  who  "wear  the 
name  of  Freedom  graven  on  a  heavier  chain." 

Early  in  the  nineteenth  century  it  was  seen 
that  in  order  to  make  freedom  for  the  many 
possible,  the  few  strong  must  be  restrained;  a 
certain  equality  must  be  maintained  by  law  or 
there  could  be  no  liberty.  Again  and  again  in 
the  last  twenty  years,  the  United  States  has 
been  forced  to  restrain  competition  by  the  In- 
ter-States Commerce  Act  and  other  laws  in  the 
interests  of  justice.  In  Great  Britain  there  is 
not  equality  enough  for  the  many  to  be  really 
free.  What  freedom  can  there  be  when  one- 
third  of  the  people  is  always,  as  Mr.  Booth  has 
proved  of  the  British,  on  the  verge  of  starva- 


J 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?        29 

tion ;  and  when  one  man  in  every  four  is  buried 
in  a  pauper's  grave? 

Lincoln  declared  that  the  principle  that  no 
one  was  good  enough  to  govern  another  against 
that  other's  will  was  the  sheet-anchor  of  free- 
dom. Yet  Britain  boasts  of  her  freedom  while 
keeping  three  hundred  odd  millions  in  thrall  in 
India  and  millions  more  in  Egypt. 

For  a  long  time  now,  the  United  States  and 
all  the  British  colonies  have  enjoyed  manhood 
suffrage.  France,  too,  and  Italy;  Spain  and 
Portugal,  Norway  and  Sweden  and  even  Ger- 
many have  constitutions  similarly  broad-based 
on  the  will  of  the  whole  people,  while  Great 
Britain  still  maintains  a  restricted  property 
suffrage  and  denies  the  Irish  the  elementary 
rights  of  free  men.  It  is  plain  on  the  surface 
that  England's  claim  to  stand  for  freedom  in 
this  twentieth  century  cannot  for  a  moment  be 
maintained. 

The  further  we  probe,  indeed,  the  more  pre- 
posterous the  claim  appears.  Great  Britain  has 
used  the  idea  of  individual  freedom  mainly  in 
the  interests  of  her  oligarchy  to  degrade  the 
bulk  of  her  population.  In  his  book  on  "En- 
vironment and  Moral  Progress"  the  great 
scientist  Alfred  Russell  Wallace  formulated  the 
most  tremendous  indictment  of  Great  Britain 
and  her  "hypocritical  lack  of  national  morality." 
This  impartial  observer  declared  that  "the  re- 
sponsibility of  Parliament  is  criminal;  it  has 
deliberately  placed  money-making  above  hu- 


30        ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

man  life  and  human  well-being.  .  .  .  Most  of 
our  towns  have  been  allowed  to  develop  into 
veritable  death-traps  for  the  poor."  With  good 
reason  he  complained  that  the  orders  from  the 
Home  Office  to  protect  the  women  broken  in 
dangerous  trades  were  cynically  set  at  defiance 
by  the  employers ;  "who  has  murdered  the  hun- 
dred thousand  children  of  the  poor?"  he  cries, 
"who  die  annually  before  they  are  one  year 
old?"  and  he  summed  up — "the  conditions  of 
labor  in  Great  Britain  are  a  disgrace  to  civiliza- 
tion." 

Let  me  add  one  instance  to  show  that  Great 
Britain  is  not  only  not  in  the  van  of  human 
progress  in  this  matter  of  care  for  the  individ- 
ual ;  'but  lags  behind  all  other  European  na- 
tions: Dock  laborers  are  notoriously  among 
the  lowest  and  worst-paid  of  casual  workmen; 
the  conditions  of  their  employment  are  of  nec- 
essity, fluctuating.  In  Hamburg  these  laborers 
must  be  employed  by  the  week;  in  Antwerp 
they  can  be  employed  by  the  day ;  in  London, 
alone  of  European  cities,  they  can  be  hired  by 
the  hour — this  one  fact  proves  that  the  wage- 
slave  is  degraded  in  England  below  the  level  of 
the  negro-slave.  Great  Britain  is  among  the 
least  free  of  modern  nations.  Her  chief  titles 
to  esteem  belong  to  the  past. 

Let  us  now  glance  at  the  respective  success 
of  England  and  Germany  in  the  struggle  for 
existence,  and  particularly  in  the  industrial 
field,  in  order  to  win  some  light  on  the  future. 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?        31 

There's  a  common  English  proverb  which 
warns  one  against  the  dangers  attending  pros- 
perity : — "few  men  can  stand  beans".  The  Brit- 
ish have  had  a  long  run  of  mercantile  success 
and  though  they  can  see  the  results  of  material 
prosperity  very  clearly  in  the  overweening  con- 
ceit of  the  Germans  they  are  unable  apparently 
to  recognize  similar  effects  in  themselves.  Yet 
the  success  of  Great  Britain  is  due,  one  would 
say,  almost  as  much  to  position  and  chance  as 
to  merit ;  an  island  placed  between  the  civilized 
nations  and  the  new  world,  on  the  road  every- 
where, so  to  speak,  for  the  sea  is  the  cheapest 
and  best  of  roads,  needing  no  repairs.  Besides, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
which  has  been  called  the  age  of  steam.  Great 
Britain  had  great  coal-fields  and  beds  of  iron 
ore,  both  close  together  and  both  near  the  sea 
or  on  the  coast.  With  these  unparalleled  ad- 
vantages it  is  little  wonder  that  Great  Britain 
outstripped  all  competitors,  developed  industry 
after  industry,  established  an  extraordinary 
trade  and  commerce  and  made  London  the  first 
port  and  the  banking  centre  of  the  world. 

The  very  evils  of  English  laws  seemed  at 
first  to  benefit  her.  The  unjust  advantages  ac- 
corded by  the  law  of  primogeniture  to  the  eld- 
est son  drove  out  the  younger  children  of  her 
great  families  to  her  colonies  and  dependen- 
cies, and  the  barbarous  severity  of  her  bank- 
ruptcy and  poor  laws  insured  a  steady  stream 
of  emigrants  from  the  industrial  classes. 


32        ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

Accordingly  almost  without  conscious  ef- 
fort she  founded  and  developed  great  colonies 
of  her  own  children  who  not  only  purchased 
her  manufactures  in  times  of  peace,  but  in  war 
were  eager  to  fight  and  die  for  the  land  which 
had  treated  them  as  the  harshest  of  step- 
mothers. 

From  the  beginning,  these  colonies,  yielding 
to  the  spirit  of  the  age,  took  the  form  of  demo- 
cratic republics.  They  never  dreamed  of  trans- 
planting into  the  new  lands  the  feudal  aristoc- 
racy which  has  made  of  Great  Britain  an  oli- 
garchy with  all  the  worst  vices  of  despotic  rule. 

Naturally  enough,  the  colonists  took  with 
them  English  laws ;  but  they  immediately  mod- 
ified their  harsher  provisions  and  mitigated  in 
all  directions  the  barbarities  of  the  English 
penal  code.  The  consequence  is  that  life  in 
Canada,  Australia  or  New  Zealand  is  almost 
as  democratic  as  it  is  in  the  United  States  of 
America,  showing  an  equal  love  of  individual 
freedom  and  of  equality  before  the  law,  tem- 
pered with  a  kindliness  to  the  weak  and  unfit  in 
the  struggle  for  existence  which  is  unknown  in 
the  Motherland. 

For  nearly  a  century  Great  Britain  held  an 
undisputed  premiership  in  trade  and  commerce ; 
and  became  not  only  the  richest  nation  in  the 
world,  but  probably  the  most  powerful,  with 
the  hegemony  of  the  seas  for  her  heritage. 

It  is  true  that  the  United  States,  growing 
rapidly  in  population  and  wealth,  began  soon 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?        33 

after  the  Civil  War  to  show  herself  as  a  dan- 
gerous competitor  in  certain  fields  ;  but  the  suc- 
cess of  a  people  of  the  same  race  only  increased 
the  vainglorious  self-esteem  of  the  British. 
The  trade  advantages  given  them  by  their  in- 
sular position,  the  natural  advantages  of  their 
coal  and  iron  beds,  v^ere  all  left  out  of  the  ac- 
count. Up  to  the  mid- Victorian  time  they 
thought  and  spoke  of  themselves  habitually  as 
the  only  capable  business  people  in  the  world, 
and  fondly  imagined  that  no  other  race  was 
their  equal  as  colonizers. 

In  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  the  Germans, 
cherishing  the  national  ideal  and  believing  that 
all  the  spiritual  and  physical  powers  of  their 
people  should  be  developed,  have  shown  them- 
selves abler  organizers  and  business  men  than 
the  English.  Without  any  advantages  of  posi- 
tion or  natural  wealth,  simply  by  knowledge 
and  energy,  they  have  built  up  great  industries, 
an  extraordinary  trade  and  a  vast  oversea  com- 
merce. With  a  far  larger  birth-rate  than  the 
English,  they  have  been  able  to  absorb  and  use 
all  their  people;  the  growth  of  population  has 
in  consequence  been  far  quicker  than  that  of 
England.  Nearly  two  hundred  thousand  Eng- 
lishmen still  leave  England  every  year;  while 
emigration  out  of  Germany  has  ceased.  In- 
stead, about  half  a  million  of  foreigners  flock 
into  Germany  each  year  and  its  population  in- 
creases at  the  rate  of  over  a  million  per  an- 
num.   In  a  country  no  larger  than  France  and 


34       ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

not  nearly  so  rich  by  nature,  they  have  crowded 
seventy  millions  of  people  as  against  forty  mil- 
lions of  Frenchmen.  "Where  good  laws  are," 
said  Benjamin  Franklin,  "much  people  flock." 

A  few  examples  may  here  be  given  to  show 
the  growth  of  German  industries ;  they  are  typ- 
ical of  a  hundred  branches  of  trade.  Twenty- 
five  years  ago  the  English  produced  twice  as 
much  steel  as  Germany;  in  191 3  Germany  pro- 
duced three  times  as  much  steel  as  Great 
Britain. 

For  generations,  English  sporting  shotguns 
had  been  regarded  all  over  the  world  as  the 
best.  Forty  years  ago,  the  sportsmen  who 
came  together  to  compete  for  the  great  pigeon- 
shooting  prizes  at  Monte  Carlo  were  all 
equipped  with  English  weapons.  About  twenty 
years  later,  however,  it  became  known  that  bar- 
rels of  Krupp  steel  were  superior  to  English 
barrels.  First  one  sportsman  and  then  another 
bowed  to  German  superiority.  Now,  in  the 
catalogues  of  British  firms,  you  find  the  an- 
nouncement: "barrels  of  Krupp  steel  can  be 
supplied  for  £10  extra." 

The  fine  dental  instruments,  too,  which  were 
formerly  all  made  in  the  United  States  are  now 
"made  in  Germany."  In  the  last  twenty  years 
of  the  race  for  wealth,  Germany  has  outstripped 
all  her  rivals. 

In  this  conflict  of  ideals,  it  looks  as  if  the 
English  ideal  belonged  to  the  past  while  the 
German  ideal  holds  the  future. 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?        35 

In  order  to  decide  which  ideal  is  the  higher, 
let  us  see  how  the  account  stands  between  the 
two  peoples  in  the  broad  field  of  politics  to-day. 


CHAPTER  III 

England's  Oligarchy 

"Let  art  and  learning,  trade  and  commerce  die ; 
But  keep,  oh  keep  our  old  nobility." 

— Lord  Henry  Manners. 

Macaulay  says  that  "of  all  aristocracies  the 
English  is  the  most  democratic,  and  of  all  dem- 
ocracies the  English  is  the  most  aristocratic." 
The  statement  sounds  nobly ;  but  is  not  so  clear 
as  might  be  desired,  and  appears  to  be  curiously 
inaccurate.  Macaulay  apparently  means  that 
the  English  aristocracy  is  recruited  more 
largely  from  the  untitled  classes  than  any  other 
aristocracy  and  that  the  English  democracy  is 
more  snobbish  than  any  other. 

There  are  not  half-a-dozen  nobles  in  Great 
Britain  (I  do  not  believe  there  is  even  one) 
whose  son  could  show  the  stainless  thirty-two 
quarterings  needed  in  order  to  obtain  admit- 
tance to  the  Borussen  Student  Corps  at  the 
University  of  Bonn.  Yet  the  British  nobility, 
thanks  to  the  right  of  primogeniture,  is  far 
more  powerful  and  privileged  and  far  further 
removed  from  the  ordinary  life  of  men  than  the 


36        ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

German  nobility :  the  rarer  the  honor,  the  more 
it  is  esteemed. 

It  usually  takes  a  generation  or  two  to  rise 
from  the  ranks  to  the  British  Peerage;  for  the 
next  two  or  three  generations,  as  a  rule,  the 
new  family  keeps  its  pride  of  place,  and  then 
in  another  generation  or  so,  drops  out  of  sight 
again  because  the  title  is  only  carried  on 
through  the  male  line. 

More  than  half  the  present  House  of  Lords 
is  of  creation  later  than  1814;  but  the  accumu- 
lation of  land,  money  and  titles  on  the  eldest 
son  alone  makes  it  easy  to  understand  why  the 
British  House  of  Lords  is  the  most  intensely 
aristocratic  assembly  in  the  world,  and  the 
British  nobility  the  wealthiest  and  proudest  of 
castes. 

When  we  take  into  account  the  unique  priv- 
ileges and  wealth  conferred  by  primogeniture, 
a  little  study  of  the  classes  from  which  this 
aristocracy  is  recruited  will  make  its  extraor- 
dinary position  and  power  clear  to  us.  The 
whole  caste  is  founded  on  wealth.  Judges  and 
successful  soldiers  are  usually  made  into  peers ; 
brewers,  bankers,  manufacturers,  all  multi- 
millionaires, indeed,  save  company-promoters 
and  financial  sharks,  are  encouraged  to  buy  from 
the  political  party  they  prefer  the  dignity  they 
desire.  The  price  of  the  Barony  or  Earldom 
they  v/ant  is  known  and  quoted.  It  depends 
to  some  slight  extent  on  the  character  of  the 
would-be  purchaser ;  but  a  few  thousands  more 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?       37 

makes  everything  easy.  The  common  nick- 
name "The  Beerage"  shows  of  what  elements 
the  British  Peerage  is  made  up.  The  "nouveaux 
riches"  (the  new  rich)  are  at  once  more  snob- 
bish and  more  greedy  than  the  hereditary  no- 
bihty.  As  soon  as  your  "Beer"  magnate  gets 
into  the  Upper  House,  he  becomes  more  con- 
servative than  the  Conservatives,  with  a  super- 
added contempt  for  the  workmen  whom  he  has 
exploited,  which  is  not  found  in  the  ordinary 
aristocrat.  The  British  aristocracy  is  recruited 
from  people  who  have  not  only  the  snobbery 
and  pride  of  an  hereditary  nobility,  but  also 
capitalist  prejudices  to  boot. 

The  best  feature  in  an  aristocracy  which,  like 
the  British,  is  also  the  great  land-owning  class, 
is  a  certain  sense  of  feudal  duty  and  generosity 
to  their  farmers  and  dependents.  And,  in  fact, 
this  feudal  relationship  of  Lord  to  vassal  is 
sometimes  seen  on  English  estates,  though  it 
is  growing  rare;  but  the  "nouveaux  riches" 
have  none  of  this  patriarchal  feeling.  They 
have  all  the  vices  of  the  aristocracy  intensified, 
with  none  of  the  careless  kindliness  of  those 
who  have  always  considered  themselves  as 
benefactors  to  their  dependents  and  by  their 
position  and  wealth  have  been  shielded  from 
rude  contact  with  realities. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  "nouveaux  riches"  do 
as  a  rule  know  that  riches  must  be  bought  and 
paid  for  with  strenuous  effort;  they  have  the 
understanding  of  individual  force,  and  are  sup- 


38       ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY— ? 

posed  to  represent  it ;  consequently,  they  exert 
a  great  influence  on  the  hereditary  peers,  but  an 
influence  that  is  usually  both  sordid  and  harsh. 

It  is  undoubtedly  the  German  paste  in  the 
English  character  which  is  responsible  for  the 
maintenance  of  this  hereditary  nobility,  and 
for  the  aristocratic  color  of  all  English  society. 
The  ordinary  German,  like  the  Englishman,  is 
docile  and  submissive  to  his  social  superiors; 
but  because  of  the  wealth  of  the  aristocracy 
and  the  Englishman's  veneration  of  money,  the 
British  nobility  stands  infinitely  higher  than  the 
German,  or  indeed  any  other  noble  caste.  A 
German  would  sneer  if  told,  as  an  Englishman 
is  told,  to  order  himself  "lowly  and  reverently 
to  his  betters"  and  to  pray  to  be  allowed  to 
exist  "in  that  state  of  life  into  which  it  has 
pleased  God  to  call  him."  I  quote  the  words 
of  the  English  Church  Catechism  because  if  I 
coined  them,  I  should  be  told  that  I  was  exag- 
gerating the  snobbish  subservience  of  the 
people. 

The  Celts,  on  the  other  hand,  whether  in  Ire- 
land, Wales  or  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  are 
notoriously  independent  and  wilful;  they  are 
inclined  to  stand  for  their  rights  as  men  and 
consider  themselves  the  equal  of  all  other  feath- 
erless  bipeds.  This  Celtic  fringe  is  in  continual 
opposition  on  almost  all  subjects,  political  and 
social,  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  majority.  In  poli- 
tics its  influence  is  a  liberating  one  and  makes 
for  equality  and  justice,  and  in  social  affairs  it 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?        39 

does  something  to  mitigate  that  unbounded 
reverence  for  rank  which  is  a  characteristic  of 
all  the  Germanic  peoples. 

But  in  Germany  real  forces,  the  chief  of 
which  are  poverty  and  the  necessity  of  earning 
a  living,  work  steadily  against  the  dominance  of 
aristocratic  pride  on  the  one  hand  and  the  ser- 
vility of  the  lower  classes  on  the  other.  A  no- 
ble in  Germany  has  nothing  like  the  position 
he  has  in  Great  Britain;  first  of  all,  the  high 
born  are  numerous,  and  what  is  more  im- 
portant, the  vast  majority  of  them  are  poor 
and  have  to  work  in  order  to  live.  Besides, 
there  is  an  immense  intellectual  middle-class 
in  Germany  which  criticises  the  nobility  from 
the  heights  of  knowledge  and,  at  the  same  time, 
encourages  the  working  people  by  insisting  on 
the  dignity  and  necessity  of  labor.  It  is  this 
class  which  differentiates  Germany  so  com- 
pletely from  Great  Britain ;  it  is  this  class  which 
inspires  German  life  with  high  purpose  and 
ideals,  and  has  gradually  infected  the  whole  na- 
tion with  a  triumphant  sense  of  the  value  of  en- 
deavor and  the  glory  of  achievement.  Para- 
sites, whether  of  the  best  class  or  of  the  low- 
est, are  despised  in  Germany  as  only  the  poor 
are  despised  in  England. 

Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  thinks  he  is  telling  the 
truth  impartially  when  he  admits  that  the  Brit- 
ish aristocrat  is  as  "snobbish  and  combative" 
as  the  Prussian  Junker.  If  he  had  said  ten 
times  prouder  and  more  snobbish  and  far  more 


40       ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

ignorant,  he  would  still  be  within  the  mark. 
He  reminds  Britons  of  the  so-called  "On  the 
Knee"  episode  when  an  English  officer  tried  to 
make  his  men  kneel  to  him ;  he  reminds  us  all, 
too,  of  the  floggings  in  English  military  pris- 
ons ;  but  knowing  nothing  about  Germany,  and 
apparently  nothing  about  primogeniture,  he 
misses  the  point  of  the  comparison.  The  Ger- 
man noble  is  no  doubt  overbearing  and  snob- 
bish and  combative,  but  he  is  usually  poor  and 
has  to  work  or  study  or  both  in  order  to  get  a 
living.  This  necessity  keeps  him  human  and  in 
close  touch  with  humanity;  he  becomes  effi- 
cient, he  learns  his  work  and  does  it;  he  is  in 
perpetual  competition  with  that  intellectual 
middle-class  which  is  the  real  driving  force  of 
the  nation.  His  name  and  title  help  him  a  lit- 
tle in  the  struggle  of  life;  but  very  little  save 
in  the  army,  and  even  there  incessant  hard  work 
is  a  tradition  and  a  duty.  It  is  the  highly  edu- 
cated German  of  the  middle-class  who  is  even 
prouder  than  the  American  of  efficient  work, 
who  sets  the  pace  in  life  and  gives  the  tone.  It 
is  the  German  school,  the  German  university, 
even  more  than  the  army,  which  forms  the  ani- 
mating spirit  of  the  people. 

The  German  noble  regards  fighting  as  his 
business.  He  is  content  to  work  hard  as  an 
officer  for  small  pay  and  no  one  can  question 
his  zeal,  his  competence,  his  self-sacrificing 
courage.  His  virtues  are,  at  least,  as  conspic- 
uous as  his  faults. 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?        41 

Very  few  of  the  English  aristocracy  do  any 
work  at  all.  The  few  who  enter  the  army, 
choose  the  Guards  or  crack  cavalry  regiments 
and  talk  of  their  duties  as  a  nuisance  when 
they  have  to  spend  even  an  hour  a  day  on  the 
parade  ground.  The  men  are  taught,  not  by 
the  commissioned  officers  as  in  Germany,  but 
by  the  non-commissioned. 

It  is  notorious  that  almost  all  the  more  capa- 
ble British  generals  have  been  drawn  from  the 
middle  classes: — Roberts,  Wolseley,  Wood, 
Brackenbury,  French ;  all  have  won  their  titles. 

A  couple  of  facts  will  illustrate  the  vast 
difference  between  the  British  army  and  the 
German.  At  the  beginning  of  this  war.  Great 
Britain  could  only  put  two  army  corps  in  the 
field.  Under  70,000  men  were  present  at  Mons 
when  already  over  two  millions  of  German 
soldiers  had  crossed  the  frontier;  yet  the  Brit- 
ish army  costs  more  than  the  German  army  and 
there  are  many  more  generals  in  the  British 
army  than  there  are  in  the  German. 

British  apologists  attribute  the  difference  in 
cost  of  the  two  forces  to  the  fact  that  theirs  is 
a  voluntary  army,  but  if  all  the  pay  given  to 
the  soldiers  be  deducted,  the  little  British  army 
is  nevertheless  more  costly  than  the  German. 
The  truth  is,  money  is  wasted  like  water  in  the 
British  army ;  the  pay  of  all  the  higher  officers 
is  enormously  larger  than  it  is  in  any  other  Eu- 
ropean army  and  they  do  infinitely  less  for 
it. 


42        ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

The  ideal  of  the  Prussian  Junker  as  an  offi- 
cer is  a  hard,  proud,  efficient  soldier,  one  who 
lives  plainly  and  is  willing  at  any  moment  to 
throw  his  life  away.  The  ideal  of  the  English 
noble  is  to  do  as  little  as  possible,  to  live  as 
well  as  possible  and  to  marry  an  heiress,  even 
an  American,  rather  than  live  in  straitened 
ways. 

Heine  saw  deeper  than  Shaw: — "England's 
nobles,"  he  says,  "hold  themselves  far  above 
the  common  ruck  of  mankind  who  are  com- 
pelled to  cling  close  to  the  earth;  like  beings 
of  a  higher  sort  they  regard  little  England  as  a 
comfortable  hotel,  Italy  as  their  winter-garden, 
Paris  as  a  gay  reception-room  and  the  whole 
world  as  their  property.  Without  care  or  duty 
or  effort  they  are  content  to  live  like  Gods  with 
gold  as  the  talisman  to  gratify  every  wildest 
wish." 

Even  Heine  does  not  attempt  to  trace  the 
soul-destroying  influence  of  this  privileged, 
parasitic,  idle  class  upon  all  the  lower  strata 
of  society;  its  ideal  is  to  live  magnificently 
without  working,  and  thus,  work,  thrift,  en- 
deavor, indeed  all  the  household  virtues,  are 
discredited.  The  public  school  boy  who  has  to 
work  for  his  living  feels  that  he  is  thereby  rele- 
gated to  a  lower  class.  The  crowds  of  young 
Englishmen  in  all  the  colonies  who  are  de- 
spised as  "remittance  men"  illustrate  the  infec- 
tion of  aristocratic  parasitism. 

"Society  is  like  a  fish,"  says  the  thinker,  "and 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?       43 

goes  rotten  first  at  the  head."  But  the  conta- 
gion spreads  rapidly,  and,  indeed,  inevitably. 
The  ideal  of  the  manhood  of  Great  Britain  is 
not  labor  and  achievement,  but  play  and  enjoy- 
ment; that  is  part  of  the  price  it  pays  for  its 
noble  caste. 

If  one  attempted  to  reckon  up  the  whole  cost 
of  this  wealthy  hereditary  aristocracy,  one 
would  never  have  done.  That  there  is  any 
health  at  all,  or  any  manhood  in  a  caste  of 
idlers  is  astonishing  and  speaks  volumes  for 
the  moral  sturdiness  and  health  of  the  race; 
but  the  handicap  of  inherited  wealth  and  posi- 
tion is  appalling.  Emerson,  who  was  the  kind- 
liest and  most  sympathetic  of  critics,  had  to  tell 
the  English  that  this  institution  "lowered  the 
dignity  of  manhood." 

It  does  infinitely  worse  than  that;  it  poisons 
the  founts  of  honor  at  the  source  and  injects 
a  subtle  all-pervading  venom  through  all  the 
veins  of  the  nation's  life.  It  falsifies  all  values, 
belittles  all  virtues,  debases  all  effort.  It  en- 
feebles the  army,  corrupts  the  judiciary,  stulti- 
fies the  legislature,  degrades  the  church.  So 
long  as  Great  Britain  preserves  this  oligarchy 
in  its  present  form,  it  cannot  hope  to  be  among 
the  nations  which  lead  the  modem  world ;  this 
one  institution  handicaps  it  out  of  the  race. 

Such  absolute  condemnation  may  seem  ex- 
travagant; of  course,  too,  my  criticism  is  con- 
fined to  the  class  as  an  institution  and  its  in- 
fluence as  a  whole.     Taken  in  that  way,  it  is 


44        ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

not  harsh ;  but,  though  the  English  aristocracy 
is  the  only  class  I  have  ever  seen  in  any  coun- 
try which,  as  an  institution,  has  nothing  to  be 
said  for  it,  there  are  members  of  it  who  are 
not  only  charming  in  manners  and  intercourse, 
but  who  are  able  even  to  turn  the  handicap  of 
their  position  and  wealth  to  account.  Such 
men  are,  however,  rare  exceptions  and  are  not 
numerous  enough  to  leaven  the  mass. 

For  the  life  of  me  I  cannot  recall  in  the  last 
couple  of  centuries,  a  single  occasion  when  the 
English  aristocracy  has  contributed  an  unsel- 
fish thought  or  the  example  of  a  noble  deed  to 
the  history  of  the  race.  The  British  House  of 
Lords  has  opposed  every  reform  from  Catholic 
and  Jewish  emancipation  to  Home  Rule  for 
Ireland,  and  has  taxed  industry  indefatigably 
for  its  own  enrichment  in  a  hundred  base  and 
senseless  ways. 

I  tried  to  believe  for  years  that  the  British 
aristocracy  had  manners  and  taste,  though  the 
manners  were  but  a  veneer  and  the  taste  was 
shown  chiefly  in  dress  and  in  the  pleasures  of 
bed  and  board;  but  I  was  gradually  forced  to 
admit  that  their  detachment  from  work  and  de- 
votion to  sense-enjoyment  had  dwarfed  and 
stunted  their  appreciation  even  of  art;  it  is 
mainly  their  influence  that  tends  to  degrade  the 
artist  in  England  to  the  level  of  the  public  en- 
tertainer as  a  sort  of  acrobat  or  mime.  Lord 
Southampton  evidently  thought  it  a  privilege 
of  his  position,  if  not  a  duty,  to  place  Shake- 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?        45 

speare  beyond  the  reach  of  want ;  but  the  mod- 
ern leaders  of  fashion  in  England  would  not 
even  know  the  name  of  a  Davidson  or  a  Mid- 
dleton  and  would  laugh  anyone  to  scorn  who 
told  them  that  they  had  any  interest  in  a  poet's 
well-being. 

One  fact  will  exemplify  the  influence  of 
the  aristocracy,  their  manners  and  their  sense 
of  spiritual  values  beyond  dispute.  At  one  of 
my  first  lunches  in  London,  I  remarked  a  little 
man  with  snowy  hair,  blue  eyes  and  healthy 
complexion  sitting  opposite  to  me  about  the 
middle  of  the  table.  On  the  right  of  the  hostess 
was  a  peer,  on  the  left,  a  Minister  of  State,  and 
then  came  ordinary  folk.  A  daughter  of  the 
house,  a  peeress  like  her  mother,  was  at  the 
other  end  of  the  table  and  supported  on  the 
right  and  left  by  titled  people.  Suddenly  I 
heard  someone  speak  of  the  little  man  opposite 
me  as  "Mr.  Browning." 

"Is  that  Robert  Browning,  the  poet?"  I 
asked  in  wonder. 

"And  did  you  once  see  Shelley  plain?" 

My  neighbor  nodded  indifferently  while  I 
gasped  with  indignation.  Fancy  putting  lord- 
lings  and  politicians  above  an  immortal  like 
Robert  Browning !  Such  a  thing  would  be  un- 
thinkable in  any  other  European  country.  In 
France,  no  nobleman  could  be  induced  to  take 
a  seat  at  a  table  above  a  great  poet  or  even  a 
Member  of  the  Institute  or  Academy ;  high  per- 


46        ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

sonal  merit  confers  position  in  Paris.  And  in 
Germany,  one  still  recalls  Frederick  the  Great's 
reproof  to  his  Lord  Chamberlain  when  he 
placed  Voltaire  at  another  table. 

"Great  intellects  rank  with  sovereigns,"  he 
said;  "put  M.  Voltaire  on  my  right." 

I  shrink  from  depicting  the  influence  of  the 
English  aristocracy  on  morals  or  religion.  I 
dislike  painting  with  shadows  and  heavy  blacks. 
It  should  be  sufficient  to  consider  the  speech 
they  affect,  and  from  that  one  example  who- 
ever cares  may  safely  calculate  the  effect  of  the 
aristocratic  attitude  in  all  the  higher  fields  of 
human  endeavor. 

There  are  many  points  of  likeness  between 
the  highest  and  the  lowest  classes  in  England ; 
but  none  more  curious  than  their  misuse  of 
language.  The  poor  are  so  ignorant  and  so  in- 
articulate by  nature  that  two  or  three  hundred 
words  suffice  to  express  all  their  ideas.  Their 
speech  is  chiefly  made  up  of  "expletives"  se- 
lected to  shock  and  prized  in  proportion  to 
their  obscenity.  The  "Smart  Set,"  too,  have  a 
vocabulary  usually  limited  to  two  or  three  hun- 
dred words  and  made  up  chiefly  of  adjectives 
selected  as  shibboleths  and  used  because  no  one 
outside  the  charmed  circle  would  think  of  giv- 
ing them  the  same  significance. 

For  instance,  one  season  "useful"  was  em- 
ployed as  an  epithet  of  highest  praise  in  meas- 
uring everything.  "She's  'useful'  as  a  dancer; 
he's    'useful'   at   drinking"    or    "lowering    'em 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?       47 

down."  Another  season,  "high-stepping"  was 
adopted  as  a  synonym  for  "fast"  or  "loose." 
"She's  a  'high-stepper,'  don't  you  know,"  had  a 
huge  success.  As  soon  as  the  middle-classes 
begin  to  use  the  same  epithet,  it  is  discontinued 
by  those  who  wish  to  be  smart. 

Innumerable  comedies  have  made  sport  of 
their  affected  use  of  the  adjective  "awful";  it's 
"awfully"  funny;  it's  "awfully"  wet  or  hot  or 
cold  or  dry  or  amiable  or  anything  else  you 
please  in  English  society.  The  language  is  at 
once  impoverished  and  degraded  to  an  extra- 
ordinary degree  by  both  the  highest  and  the 
lowest  classes;  by  the  lowest  as  a  defiant  sign 
of  their  abject  condition;  by  the  highest  as  a 
symbol  of  snobbish  superiority.  Which  is  the 
more  poisonous  motive  may  be  debated,  but 
the  fact  paints  English  society  in  its  habit  as  it 
lives. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  influence  of 
the  "corner-boy"  or  "bar-loafer"  is  extraordi- 
narily like  the  influence  exercised  in  every  de- 
partment of  English  life  by  the  hereditary  no- 
ble. Your  Earl  Fitz  this  or  Fitz  that  is  almost 
always  on  the  same  moral  and  intellectual  level 
as  the  street-loafer.  The  child  spoiled  by  lux- 
ury and  subservience  is  curiously  like  the  gut- 
ter-snipe degraded  by  destitution  and  misery. 

No  picture  of  the  English  aristocracy  would 
be  complete  without  at  least  a  specimen  or  two 
of  the  religious  maniac.  There  is  a  protestant 
Duke  (there  are  only  about  a  dozen  English 


48        ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

Dukes  all  told)  who  is  an  Irvingite,  and  be- 
lieves in  the  "gift  of  tongues"  accorded  to  Car- 
lyle's  friend,  Irving. 

There  is  another  Duke,  a  devout  Catholic, 
who  is  intensely  proud  of  his  name  and  lineage. 
He  married  a  cousin,  mainly,  it  was  said,  be- 
cause he  thought  no  other  blood  blue  enough. 
His  eldest  boy  was  deformed  and  anything  but 
bright.  The  father  took  him  to  Lourdes  again 
and  again,  bathed  him  in  the  holy  well  and 
prayed  over  him.  Neither  prayers  nor  pilgrim- 
age did  any  good.  The  poor  little  fellow  died. 
A  few  years  afterwards  the  mother  died  also. 
The  Duke  evidently  did  not  understand  the 
lesson,  much  less  take  it  to  heart,  for  he  has 
since  married  another  cousin.  The  children  of 
this  marriage  are  said  to  be  normal.  But  what 
can  be  expected  from  the  offspring  of  such  a 
union? 

And  what  can  be  said  for  a  caste  that  pro- 
duces such  men  as  these  among  its  finest  flow- 
ers? 

CHAPTER  IV 

England's  Laws 

England's  laws  are  still  more  barbarous 
(grausamer)   than  her  oligarchy. — Heine. 

While  one  agrees  with  Montesquieu  that  one 
can  learn  more  about  a  nation  from  its  laws 
than  from  all  other  institutions,  it  is  most  im- 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?        49 

portant  not  to  be  led  astray  by  particularities 
which  are  not  characteristic  but  to  consider  the 
whole  trend  and  tendency  of  the  legislation. 

If  we  find  certain  features  of  the  civil  law 
repeated  in  the  criminal  law,  and  supported 
again  by  well-known  customs,  it  is  almost  cer- 
tain that  these  traits  are  characteristic  of  the 
people. 

All  the  supporters  of  England,  from  Locke 
and  Wordsworth  to  Sir  Edward  Grey  and  Ar- 
nold Bennett,  unite  in  basing  her  claim  to  dis- 
tinction on  "freedom" — in  especial  on  "free  in- 
stitutions" and  "free  speech."  Let  us  try  then 
to  see  how  England  stands  in  regard  to  liberty. 

"There  can  be  no  freedom,"  says  Locke, 
"without  free  speech."  One  used  to  hear  con- 
tinually that  England  was  the  home  of  free 
speech;  every  Englishman,  we  were  told,  was 
free  to  tell  the  truth  as  he  saw  it  without  fear 
or  favor.  The  boast  may  have  been  justified 
in  the  past  before  printing  was  much  used  and 
when  England  was  compared  with  continental 
despotisms;  it  can  hardly  be  sustained  to-day. 
The  right  of  free  speech  or  free  writing  and 
printing  has  been  limited  in  Great  Britain  by 
the  most  stringent  libel  laws  ever  framed. 
They  are  wittingly  founded  on  what  Milton 
called  "the  blasphemy"  that  it  may  be  wrong 
to  tell  the  truth.  Indeed,  British  lawyers  are 
not  ashamed  to  stand  on  the  epigram — 

"the  greater  the  truth  the  greater  the  libel." 


50       ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

In  the  United  States  there  is  only  one  State, 
Massachusetts,  in  which  the  truth  can  be  a  li- 
bel, and  even  there  juries  hesitate  to  punish  the 
teller  of  the  truth. 

The  law,  o£  course,  should  be  that  if  any 
statement  is  true,  the  complainant  should  be 
compelled  to  prove  that  it  is  not  for  the  public 
benefit  to  publish  it,  and  in  all  such  cases  the 
punishment  should  be  light,  and  never  lead  to 
imprisonment.  In  Great  Britain  it  is  the  teller 
of  the  truth  who  is  compelled  to  prove  that  his 
statement  is  for  the  public  benefit,  and  if  he 
fails  to  establish  this,  he  is  usually  sent  to 
prison.  Moreover,  in  cases  of  publication  in  a 
newspaper,  timely  apology  and  the  withdrawal 
of  a  libelous  statement  should  be  regarded  as 
sufficient  atonment.  The  British  law  here  is 
ridiculous  in  its  hatred  of  truth  and  dislike  of 
free  speech.  In  every  other  trade  or  profession 
in  Christendom,  an  accident  is  treated  as  an 
accident.  Even  in  Great  Britain  if  your  motor- 
car runs  into  another  man's  car  and  kills  his 
wife  and  daughter  by  accident,  all  he  can  re- 
cover from  you  is  the  cost  of  the  material  in- 
jury inflicted  on  his  car,  clothes,  etc.  But  if  a 
paper  happens  to  libel  a  man  by  accident; 
though  it  apologizes  at  once,  it  may,  neverthe- 
less, be  condemned  to  pay  thousands  of  pounds 
damages  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  no  damages 
have  been  alleged;  nay,  even  if  it  has  been 
proven  or  expressly  admitted  that  no  damages 
whatever  have  been  inflicted. 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?       51 

One  instance  of  this  almost  incredible  fact 
must  suffice. 

In  1908,  the  weekly  journal,  "Vanity  Fair," 
published  an  article  reflecting  on  Parr's  bank. 
Shortly  afterwards,  the  journal  declared  that 
the  article  had  appeared  by  mistake  and  pub- 
lished the  completest  possible  apology.  When 
the  action  came  on  for  trial,  the  representatives 
of  Parr's  bank  were  asked  whether  they  could 
trace  any  damages.  They  admitted  that  no 
damage  whatever  was  done.  The  Judge  ex- 
pressly charged  the  jury  that  this  should  not 
prevent  them  giving  exemplary  damages  if  they 
saw  fit.  Encouraged  by  this  advice,  the  jury 
brought  in  a  verdict  of  five  thousand  pounds 
or  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  against  the  pro- 
prietor of  the  newspaper. 

The  case  was  taken  to  the  Court  of  Appeal 
where  Lord  Justice  Moulton  and  two  other 
judges  declared  that  they  regarded  five  thou- 
sands pounds  as  a  very  small  and  reasonable 
amount,  and  confirmed  the  verdict. 

Mad  unreason  could  be  pushed  no  further. 
An  accident  which  caused  no  damage  was  pun- 
ished vindictively. 

There  is  much  less  freedom  of  speech  to-day 
in  England  than  there  is  in  Russia. 

The  libel  law  of  Great  Britain  is  a  disgrace 
to  the  lawgivers  and  judges  who  have  framed 
it  and  to  the  people  who  have  accepted  it.  It 
is  drawn  up  simply  to  protect  the  rich  and  pow- 
erful from  any  word  of  criticism,  true  or  false, 


52        ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

purposed  or  accidental,  and  by  itself,  is  suffi- 
cient to  prove  that  England  prefers  money  to 
both  truth  and  liberty. 

In  exactly  the  same  spirit  the  laws  prohibit- 
ing what  is  known  as  "obscene  libel"  are  ad- 
ministered. Recently  a  masterpiece  of  litera- 
ture, the  "Contes  Drolatiques"  of  Balzac,  which 
has  been  translated  and  published  in  every  Eu- 
ropean country,  was  tardily  rendered  into  Eng- 
lish. At  once  it  was  seized  by  the  police  who 
regulate  the  infamous  nightly  traffic  of  Picca- 
dilly. The  London  magistrate  immediately  or- 
dered the  book  to  be  burned  and  congratulated 
the  police  upon  discovering  what  he  called  "the 
blackest  plague-spot  in  London."  The  joyous 
humorous  "Contes  Drolatiques"  worse  than  the 
prostitution  of  Piccadilly  Circus;  worse  than 
the  child-traffic  of  the  Mile-End  road !  British 
justice  needs  no  further  exemplification.  To 
talk  of  free  speech  in  such  a  country  would  be 
ridiculous,  were  it  not  shameful. 

Everyone  remembers  how  Bradlaugh  was 
treated  for  telling  the  truth  and  how  Mrs.  Be- 
sant,  a  high-minded  religious  teacher,  if  ever 
there  was  one,  was  punished  for  publishing 
simple  facts  of  medical  science. 

Even  the  barbarous  libel-laws  I  have  de- 
scribed in  outline  are  not  sufficient  protection 
to  the  oligarchy.  In  the  past,  judges  tried  to 
protect  the  administration  of  justice  against 
undue  influence  or  unfair  comment  by  treat- 
ing such  comment  while  a  case  was  pending 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?        53 

(sub  judice)  as  "contempt  of  court"  and  pun- 
ishing it  accordingly  either  by  fine  or  confine- 
ment or  both.  This  power  was  used  centuries 
ago,  to  give  a  defendant  fair-play,  to  protect 
him  against  the  arbitrary  power  of  the  Crown. 
It  is  evident  that  there  is  a  class  of  cases  which 
should  be  summarily  dealt  with  in  some  such 
way.  And  for  centuries  these  cases  were  han- 
dled in  Great  Britain  with  a  certain  rough  com- 
mon sense.  The  law  was  held  to  be  that  com- 
ment in  the  earlier  stages  of  a  case  would  not 
be  regarded  as  influential  enough  to  require 
summary  treatment,  and  if  the  justice  of  the 
case  could  be  met  by  a  libel  action  that  was 
the  proper  way  to  proceed.  But  latterly,  Eng- 
lish judges  of  the  baser  sort  have  used  this 
power  deliberately  as  petty  despots.  Judge 
Horridge  held  recently  that  libelous  comment 
on  either  party  in  a  suit  was  "contempt  of 
court"  and  though  the  law  declares  that  in  case 
of  libel  the  editor,  the  printer  and  the  publisher 
are  responsible,  he  added  that  the  Managing 
Director  of  the  Company  owning  the  newspa- 
per could  be  held  responsible  though  the  only 
evidence  before  him  was  an  affidavit  stating 
that  the  Managing  Director  had  never  seen  the 
article  in  question.  And  he  followed  up  this 
iniquitous  decision  by  incarcerating  the  unfor- 
tunate Director  for  contempt  of  Court. 

The  lettres  de  cachet  committing  persons  to 
the  Bastille  without  form  of  trial  were  said  to 
have  done  more  to  bring  about  the  French 


54        ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

Revolution  than  any  other  single  wrong ;  these 
infamous  "letters"  had  to  be  signed  by  the  King 
and  the  King  alone,  but  in  England  you  have 
a  hundred  petty  despots  called  judges  who  can 
and  do  commit  innocent  persons  to  prison 
without  form  of  trial  and  without  any  possibil- 
ity of  redress. 

This  one  instance  suffices  to  show  how  cru- 
elly Mr,  Arnold  Bennett  is  mistaken  when  he 
talks  of  England  as  standing  for  liberty  in  this 
century.  England  is  the  only  country  in  Eu- 
rope where  the  innocent  are  sent  to  prison 
without  trial  and  kept  there  in  defiance  of 
justice.  No  habeas  corpus  act  can  avail  the 
guiltless  against  a  judge's  fiat,  and  the  length 
of  imprisonment  is  at  his  discretion.  He  may 
even  override  a  doctor's  affidavit  that  the  im- 
prisonment is  damaging  the  health  or  endan- 
gering the  life  of  his  victim.  Your  Sir  Thomas 
Horridge  under  these  circumstances  will  not 
hesitate  to  browbeat  and  insult  the  doctor  in 
the  traditional  manner  of  the  infamous 
Jeffries. 

Such  committals  for  "contempt  of  court" 
which  introduce  into  the  ordinary  administra- 
tion of  the  law  all  the  whimsical  idiosyncrasy 
and  the  savage  cruelty  and  injustice  of  the 
worst  of  monarchical  despotisms  serve  to  show 
how  freedom  of  speech  is  hated  to-day  in  Eng- 
land. All  these  laws  and  punishments  are  cun- 
ningly framed  in  the  interests  of  the  rich  and 
are  intended,  as  one  foreign  writer  phrased  it, 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?        55 

to  ensure  to  the  public  robber  the  undisturbed 
enjoyment  of  his  "kill." 

But  someone  will  say  if  free  speech  has  been 
abolished  in  Great  Britain  since  it  has  grown 
rich,  at  least  the  institutions  are  free:  there  is 
government  of  the  people  and  by  the  people  if 
not  for  the  people.  Ireland  may  be  despoti- 
cally fleeced  and  flogged,  soldiers  may  be  used 
to  take  the  place  of  workmen  out  on  strike ;  but 
this  mixture  of  feudal  and  capitalistic  tyranny 
is  approved  of  by  the  majority  of  the  people. 
No  wilder  misconception  was  ever  popularised. 
The  other  day  in  New  York,  Miss  Christabel 
Pankhurst  in  a  lecture  gaily  declared  that  the 
people  governed  in  Great  Britain  but  in  Ger- 
many the  Kaiser -made  war  and  peace  accord- 
ing to  his  own  sweet  will.  Again  and  again 
she  asserted  that  there  was  manhood  suffrage 
in  Great  Britain  and  not  in  Germany,  though 
every  moderately  well-informed  person  knows 
that  the  exact  contrary  is  the  case.  Half  the 
workmen  in  Great  Britain  are  disfranchised  by 
the  so-called  "lodger"  qualification  which  pro- 
vides that  only  those  men  can  vote  who  pay 
six  shillings  a  week  for  their  lodging  and  can 
prove  six  months'  continuous  occupancy.  Be- 
sides, plural  voting  of  the  rich  is  allowed  to 
any  extent.  But  even  if  manhood  suffrage  were 
introduced  to-morrow  in  Great  Britain,  there 
would  be  no  freedom  possible  there  while  the 
libel  laws  and  the  law  on  debts  and  debtors  are 
what  they  are  and  while  they  are  administered 


56        ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

by  aristocratic  judges  in  the  interests  of  the 
oligarchy.  The  governing  classes  in  Great 
Britain  only  extend  the  vote  in  measure  as  they 
see  that  this  can  be  done  without  endangering 
their  privileges.  There  will  never  be  the  ghost 
of  freedom  in  England  till  there  is  a  social  rev- 
olution. 

The  evil  springs  immediately  from  the  aris- 
tocratic position  accorded  to  the  judges  and 
officers  of  justice.  Judges  in  the  high  court 
get  from  $25,000  a  year  to  $50,000.  They  work 
short  hours  and  have  four  months'  holiday  in 
the  summer.  After  fifteen  years'  work,  they 
have  retiring  pensions  from  $15,000  a  year  up- 
wards. They  are  practically  appointed  for  life ; 
it  is  true  they  can  be  removed  by  the  Home 
Secretary;  but  this  power  is  hardly  ever  exer- 
cised. Even  judges  who  are  notoriously  in- 
sane, like  the  late  Mr.  Justice  Stephen,  are  al- 
lowed to  officiate.  Do  not  let  me  be  told  that 
this  is  a  solitary  instance.  It  is  well  known 
that  the  present  Justice  Phillimore  has  "very 
peculiar"  ideas  on  divorce.  He  refuses  to  pro- 
nounce any  such  decision;  "God's  laws  are 
higher  than  man's  laws,"  he  says ;  yet  he  is  still 
continued  on  the  bench  because  of  his  eminent 
services.  He  recently  sentenced  the  writer  of 
a  letter  containing  "an  implied  threat"  (the 
words  are  his  own)  to  twenty  years'  imprison- 
ment. It  is  a  charity  to  regard  him  as  irre- 
sponsible. 

If  the  huge  emoluments  given  to  English 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?        57 

judges  are  not  sufficient  to  keep  them  in  per- 
fect sympathy  with  the  governing  oligarchy,  the 
further  corruption  of  titles  is  carefully  used  to 
make  them  properly  subservient.  The  judge  is 
usually  made  a  Knight,  but  if  he  shows  much 
independence,  the  honor  can  be  withheld.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  he  is  pliable  enough,  he  will 
almost  certainly  be  made  a  Lord  and  translated 
to  the  House  of  Peers.  Yet  because  it  is  prac- 
tically impossible  to  buy  a  judge  for  cash  he  is 
regarded  as  incorruptible. 

Under  these  circumstances,  it  is  not  surpris- 
ing that  the  judges  in  England  have  again  and 
again  turned  the  law  into  an  instrument  of  ty- 
ranny. It  is  practically  always  interpreted 
against  the  lower  classes,  who  are  already  al- 
most shut  out  from  any  chance  of  obtaining 
justice  by  the  costliness  of  the  procedure.  Re- 
cently these  aristocratic  judges  practically  put 
an  end  to  Trade  Unions  by  holding  that  the 
Union  funds  couldn't  be  used  to  help  candi- 
dates in  their  election  expenses.  The  judges' 
view  of  the  law  crippled  the  Trade  Unions  com- 
pletely, until  they  got  a  new  lav/  passed  in  the 
present  parliament  which  even  English  judges 
appear  unable  to  misread. 

The  cost  of  going  to  court  is  higher  in  Eng- 
land than  in  any  country  in  the  world.  It  is 
difficult  to  recover  a  small  debt  without  ex- 
pending more  money  than  it  is  worth.  The 
costs  in  cases  of  debts  under  twenty-five  dol- 
lars are  often  larger  than  the  debt;  whereas 


58        ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

in  France  or  in  Germany,  such  a  debt  does  not 
cost  on  the  average  ten  per  cent  to  recover. 

The  judges  of  the  lower  courts  are  all  paid 
extravagantly.  A  county  Court  Judge  in  Eng- 
land receives  seventy-five  hundred  dollars  a 
year ;  tv^^ice  as  much  as  the  judges  of  the  high- 
est Court  of  Appeal  receive  in  France  or  Ger- 
many. From  one  end  of  the  system  to  the 
other  all  care  is  taken  to  insure  aristocratic 
prejudices  in  the  judges.  It  is  a  mere  truism  to 
say  that  no  justice  can  be  looked  for  in  Eng- 
land by  a  poor  man  when  any  member  of  the 
titled  aristocracy,  or  indeed  any  rich  man,  is 
opposed  to  him  in  a  case. 

This  self-styled  land  of  liberty  is  the  only 
country  in  Europe  where  that  form  of  chattel- 
slavery,  known  as  imprisonment  for  debt,  still 
flourishes,  and  curiously  enough,  this  institu- 
tion throws  the  most  sinister  light  upon  the 
whole  administration  of  law  in  Great  Britain. 
In  1869  the  British  Parliament  passed  an  Act 
abolishing  "Imprisonment  for  Debt."  One  pro- 
vision, however,  was  retained.  If  the  debtor 
was  a  rich  man,  it  was  argued,  there  ought  to 
be  some  compulsion  to  force  him  to  pay.  Ac- 
cordingly, in  case  "means"  were  proved,  the 
judges  were  allowed  to  send  recalcitrant  debt- 
ors to  prison  for  not  more  than  six  weeks,  not 
for  debt  but  for  "contempt  of  court."  Under 
this  provision  some  twelve  thousand  persons 
are  annually  sent  to  prison  in  Great  Britain  by 
the  be-wigged  Solons  and  half  of  these  crimi- 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?        59 

nals  are  imprisoned  for  sums  less  than  twenty- 
five  dollars! 

Evidently,  an  English  judge's  ideas  of 
"means"  are  peculiar. 

But  even  this  dreadful  miscarriage  of  justice 
would  not  paint  English  judges  to  the  life. 
Under  the  pretence  of  making  it  easier  for  the 
debtor,  but  really  in  order  to  give  him  time 
and  encouragement  to  practice  blackmail  on 
all  his  female  relatives,  who  pay  to  avoid  stain- 
ing the  name  with  the  prison  smudge;  the 
judges  ordered  debts  of  even  less  than  £5  to 
be  paid  in  instalments  (though  "means"  must 
have  been  proved  to  their  satisfaction.)  The 
next  step  was  easy;  the  debtor  is  now  sent  to 
prison  for  not  paying  an  instalment  and  so  can 
be  sent  to  prison  a  dozen  times  for  the  same 
petty  debt.  Recently  a  Colonel  in  the  army 
who  had  fought  and  bled  for  his  country,  was 
sent  to  prison  for  the  third  time  for  not  paying 
an  instalment  of  a  small  debt.  Though  the 
man  was  starving,  "means"  were  held  to  have 
been  proved. 

The  barbarous  stupidity  of  such  judgments 
and  judges  seems  to  strike  no  one  in  England. 
The  facts  seldom  get  into  the  papers  and  never 
call  forth  any  comment ;  they  excite  no  assured 
interest  such  as  attaches  to  the  announcement 
that  "Lord  and  Lady  Snooks  arrived  at  Clar- 
idge's  Hotel  yesterday  from  their  country  seat." 

It  must  always  be  remembered  that  nearly 
all  the  cruelties  perpetrated  under  the  heading 


6o        ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

"contempt  of  court"  as  equivalent  to  impris- 
onment for  debt  are  directed  against  the  poor 
alone.  For  debts  over  $250,  bankruptcy  pro- 
ceedings can  be  instituted  by  either  party,  and 
so  the  man  who  owes  large  sums  is  exempted 
from  any  chance  of  being  imprisoned  either 
for  debt  or  contempt  of  court.  The  whole  pro- 
ceeding is  directed  against  the  poor  and  would 
be  farcical  were  it  not  tragic. 

In  contrast  with  all  other  civilized  coun- 
tries, English  laws  have  in  many  respects  be- 
come harsher  in  the  last  forty  or  fifty  years  and 
English  judges  to-day  do  worse  than  ruin  men 
for  accidents  beyond  their  control. 

So  far  I  have  only  been  treating  of  the  Eng- 
lish civil  law  and  its  procedure.  I  must  now 
say  a  word  or  two  about  the  criminal  law, 
which,  as  Alfred  Russel  Wallace  writes,  "shov/s 
equal  injustice."  Here  is  the  considered  opin- 
ion of  the  great  scientist:  "The  dictum  of  the 
law,  that  an  Englishman  should  be  held  to  be 
innocent  till  he  is  proved  to  be  guilty,  is  abso- 
lutely reversed  in  the  case  of  the  poor  man, 
and  he  is  treated  as  if  he  were  guilty  till, 
against  overwhelming  odds,  he  is  able  to  prove 
himself  innocent." 

Dr.  Wallace  is  well  within  the  truth.  If  a 
working  man  is  arrested  for  stealing,  let  us  say, 
no  attempt  even  is  made  to  free  him  by  provid- 
ing bail  (the  bail  would  be  fixed  at  a  prepos- 
terous figure)  ;  he  is  haled  off  to  prison  and  his 
family  thrown  to  want.    In  prison  he  is  treated 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?        6i 

in  every  respect  as  a  criminal;  he  has  to  clean 
out  the  cells  of  other  prisoners,  is  pushed  and 
ordered  about  as  if  he  were  lower  than  a  dog 
and  fed  worse  than  most  dogs  are  fed.  I  re- 
member once  visiting  a  chauffeur  in  prison :  he 
had  knocked  down  a  man  and  injured  him  one 
dark  night.  He  had  been  in  prison  more  than 
a  month  when  I  saw  him.  His  wife  and  child 
had  been  reduced  to  beggary;  he  was  nearly 
insane  with  anxiety  on  their  account ;  but  could 
do  nothing  for  them.  He  was  very  inarticulate, 
though  capable,  careful,  honest  and  well-be- 
haved. If  he  had  been  left  without  a  first-rate 
barrister,  he  would  inevitably  have  been  con- 
victed. As  it  was,  the  judge  treated  him  as  if 
he  ought  to  have  been  hung  because  a  drunken 
man  stepped  off  the  sidewalk  at  the  last  min- 
ute in  front  of  his  car.  Though  innocent  of  all 
offence  this  man  not  only  lost  his  job,  but  was 
confined  for  two  months  in  prison  and  treated 
as  a  criminal.  His  little  home  was  sold  up ;  his 
wife  and  child  tortured  by  semi-starvation :  did 
the  law  compensate  him  for  ruining  him  and 
putting  the  prison  stain  upon  him?  On  the 
contrary,  the  judge  told  him  it  was  very  lucky 
for  him  that  the  jury  took  so  mild  a  view  of 
what  he  had  done.  Had  the  chauffeur  not  hap- 
pened to  enlist  the  sympathy  of  a  man  of  means 
he  would  surely  have  suffered  at  least  a  year's 
imprisonment.  As  it  was,  he  was  merely 
ruined  and  tortured  for  being  innocent.  With 
a  clean  chauffeur's  record  for  over  ten  years  be- 


62        ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

hind  him,  he  could  not  get  work  even  as  driver 
of  a  motor-cab.  The  prison  had  made  his 
chance  of  getting  private  service  impossible. 
He  was  ultimately  compelled  to  take  a  place  in 
a  garage  at  twenty-five  shillings  a  week  as 
helper,  though  till  that  time  he  had  never 
earned  less  than  fifty  shillings. 

I  could  give  a  dozen  instances  within  my 
own  knowledge  of  worse  injustice  than  this 
worked  by  the  ordinary  operation  of  the  Eng- 
lish law:  Dr.  Wallace's  condemnation  must 
be  accepted  as  a  mild  statement  of  the  truth. 

And  the  harshness  of  the  English  law  and 
English  judges  towards  the  poor  is  sharpened 
to  brutality  by  the  inhuman  severity  of  English 
prisons.  Fortunately,  here  I  find  another  un- 
impeachable witness  even  better-informed  than 
Dr.  Wallace  himself. 

In  her  book  on  English  Prisons,  Lady  Con- 
stance Lytton  describes  the  nameless  barbari- 
ties practised  on  female  prisoners.  She  tells 
how  she  was  forcibly  fed  by  a  male  doctor 
while  one  nurse  sat  on  her  legs  and  another 
held  her  arms.  When,  in  spite  of  this  restraint, 
or  because  of  it,  she  vomited,  the  doctor  slapped 
her  face. 

She  tells  of  how  another  woman  prisoner 
slipped  and  broke  her  ankle,  and  was  told  by 
the  doctors  that  there  was  nothing  the  matter 
with  her  and  was  forced  to  walk  up  and  down 
the  iron  stairs  for  weeks.  On  account  of  this 
savagery,  the  broken  leg  shrank,  the  woman 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?        63 

became  a  cripple,  and  was  unable  to  support 
her  little  children.  Mr.  Winston  Churchill  as 
Home  Secretary  had  for  very  shame's  sake  to 
grant  the  tortured  and  maimed  creature  $2,500 
as  compensation,  but  at  the  same  time  he  de- 
clared that  the  prison  doctors  who  had  pre- 
tended to  examine  her  three  several  times,  were 
in  no  wise  to  blame. 

A  couple  of  further  facts  will  show  the  in- 
credible meanness  and  barbarity  of  the  whole 
system. 

Some  time  ago,  the  "Daily  Chronicle"  pub- 
lished a  series  of  articles  proving  that  although 
the  necessaries  of  life  were  far  cheaper  in  Ger- 
many than  in  England,  the  German  authorities 
expended  twice  as  much  money  in  feeding  their 
prisoners  as  the  English  authorities.  Semi- 
starvation  is  a  part  of  the  prison  regime  in 
England. 

Recently  the  whole  question  of  the  insensate 
cruelty  of  the  English  prison  has  been  brought 
before  the  public  by  the  fact  that  three-fourths 
of  all  the  criminals  in  England  are  "habitual 
criminals."  Investigation  Vv^as  called  for  by  the 
case  of  a  man  who  had  spent  more  than  forty- 
five  of  his  sixty  years  in  prison.  He  declared 
that  from  the  first  sentence  he  had  been  perse- 
cuted by  the  police,  and  had  not  had  a  chance 
to  retrieve  his  position. 

With  proofs  before  them  that  their  prison 
system  is  intolerably  severe,  what  did  the  Eng- 
lish authorities  do?     Instead  of  following  the 


64        ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

example  of  the  more  highly  civilized  countries, 
such  as  France,  the  United  States  and  Ger- 
many, they  passed  a  short  law  giving  the  right 
to  judges  to  confine  any  one  whom  they  re- 
garded as  an  "habitual  offender,"  to  prison  for 
the  rest  of  his  life.  This  disgraceful  law  is  the 
lowest  depth  reached  by  any  legislature  in 
Christendom  for  the  last  century  and  a  half, 
and  it  was  passed  only  the  other  day. 

Every  country  has  found  that  as  they  have 
lightened  punishment  and  brought  about  a  bet- 
ter distribution  of  wealth,  offences  against  the 
law  have  steadily  diminished.  Crimes  have  di- 
minished in  England,  but  there  alone  in  the 
last  ten  years  the  punishment  has  been  made 
harsher. 

CHAPTER  V 

English  Justice 

"...  I  am  the  nerve  o'er  which  do  creep 
The  else  unfelt  oppressions  of  mankind." 

—Shelley. 

A  great  Frenchman  has  said,  "There  can  be 
no  freedom  without  justice."  And,  indeed,  the 
desire  of  justice  is  the  most  passionate,  the 
most  far-reaching  and  among  the  highest  of 
moral  impulses. 

There  is  no  justice  in  Nature;  it  is  an  attri- 
bute of  man  alone,  a  reflection  of  the  Divine  in 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?        65 

mankind.  By  far  the  greatest  field  for  the 
display  of  justice  is  to  be  found  in  the  distri- 
bution of  wealth.  In  proportion  as  wealth  is 
evenly  distributed  in  a  nation,  you  may  be  sure 
that  in  precisely  that  measure  the  sense  of  jus- 
tice among  the  inhabitants  is  acute  and  devel- 
oped. Judged  by  this  standard,  France  to-day 
and  Germany  are  the  first  countries  in  Europe, 
and  Great  Britain  certainly  the  last.  Mr.  Booth 
has  proved  that  one-third  of  the  population  of 
Great  Britain  is  always  on  the  verge  of  starva- 
tion ;  fifteen  millions  of  human  beings  living  in 
appalling  destitution  and  misery  in  the  richest 
country  that  has  ever  been  known  in  the  world. 

The  devil's  advocate  would  argue  that  in  an 
open  race  for  wealth  the  weakest  must  come  to 
grief;  but  everyone  to-day  is  beginning  to  see 
that  the  open  race  is  not  a  fair  race  and  can 
never  be  fair,  least  of  all  in  Great  Britain, 
where  you  have  an  hereditary  aristocracy,  an 
hereditary  wealthy  land-owning  class,  and 
where,  besides,  all  the  powers  of  the  State,  of 
law,  of  education,  of  the  police  and  of  custom 
are  used  in  contempt  of  justice  to  increase  nat- 
ural inequalities  of  condition  and  not  to  dimin- 
ish them. 

Do  not  assume  that  I  am  pressing  the  point 
unduly.  It  would  be  impossible  for  anyone  who 
did  not  know  Great  Britain  intimately  even  to 
imagine  how  cunningly  the  scales  of  justice  are 
weighted  against  the  poor.  When  writing  of 
the  English  laws,  I  have  given  some  examples 


66       ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

of  this,  but  the  disabilities  of  poverty,  every- 
where heart-breaking,  are  in  Great  Britain  in- 
finite and  permeate  every  part  of  the  national 
life.  Two  or  three  examples  may  here  be  given 
at  haphazard. 

It  was  recently  shown  in  a  London  journal 
that  the  poor,  being  forced  to  buy  their  coals  in 
small  quantities,  pay  twice  the  market  price, 
and  in  many  cases,  even  more,  for  this  necessary 
of  life.  The  co-operative  stores  in  northern 
towns  sell  groceries  at  less  than  half  the  price 
the  poor  of  London  have  to  pay  for  them. 

Take  the  scandal  of  the  so-called  dangerous 
trades.  Six  years  ago  there  was  a  Home  Of- 
fice inquiry  into  the  conditions  of  life  in  the 
"Hollow-ware"  works  at  Lye  and  Cradley 
Heath,  where  large  numbers  of  girls  and  young 
women  are  employed.  The  facts  elicited  were 
soul-sickening:  the  sufferings  from  lead  pois- 
oning almost  incredible;  the  mortality  as  high 
as  the  wage  (less  than  $2  a  week)  was  low. 
The  official  report  declared  that  "the  process 
used"  was  "dangerous  to  life"  and  should  be 
"totally  discontinued."  An  order  was  issued  by 
the  Home  Office  that  after  two  years  the  pro- 
cess should  be  no  longer  used;  this  order  has 
never  been  put  in  force.  Nine  out  of  ten  of  the 
employers  go  on  as  usual.  In  Great  Britain, 
says  Dr.  Wallace,  commenting  on  this  almost 
incredible  fact,  there  is  practically  "no  govern- 
ment interference  with  conditions  of  labor 
which  are  a  disgrace  to  civilization." 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?       67 

The  more  one  studies  the  disabilities  of  pov- 
erty in  England  the  more  shameful  are  the  facts 
discovered.  Adulteration  has  become  a  fine  art 
and  extends  to  every  article  of  consumption. 
In  spite  of  numberless  prosecutions  and  fines, 
even  the  milk  of  the  poor  is  still  habitually  adul- 
terated and  the  government  shrinks  from  pun- 
ishing this  sordid  crime  with  imprisonment. 
Practically  every  article  of  food  is  adulterated 
and  the  government  winks  at  this  perpetual 
robbery  of  the  poor  by  the  well-to-do  trades- 
man. 

One  result  of  this  dishonesty  can  be  shown 
in  figures:  In  the  Garden  Village  of  Bourn- 
ville,  infant  mortality  stands  at  65  per  1,000 
born;  in  St.  Mary's  Ward,  Birmingham,  it  is 
331,  or  five  times  as  much.  Dr.  Wallace  asserts 
that  "the  moral  degradation"  of  Great  Britain 
is  "increasing" ;  both  the  deaths  from  drunken- 
ness and  the  number  of  suicides  are  steadily 
growing. 

It  is  almost  incredible  that  the  people  who 
first  treated  dumb  animals  with  kindness  and 
consideration,  who  first  got  up  a  society  for 
the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  animals  and  first 
founded  homes  for  lost  dogs  and  lost  cats, 
should  be  the  very  people  to  treat  their  poorer 
sisters  and  brothers  with  inhuman  cruelty.  In- 
stead of  helping  the  poor  to  get  out  of  the 
Slough  of  Despair,  instead  of  making  roads 
through  it  for  their  benefit,  or  indeed  draining 
it  once  for  all  as  even  enlightened  self-interest 


68        ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

would  counsel,  they  use  the  police  and  the  law 
courts  and  all  the  powers  of  the  State  to  thrust 
the  miserable  deeper  into  the  mire,  and  further 
to  degrade  those  they  have  already  iniquitously 
disinherited.  There  is  no  public  conscience  in 
England  speaking  for  the  poor. 

Even  those  who  have  been  rich  and  have 
lost  their  money  for  whatever  reason  are  treat- 
ed in  England  with  savage  brutality;  the 
wounded  wolf  is  simply  torn  to  pieces  and  eaten 
by  the  savage  pack. 

The  bankruptcy  laws  of  Great  Britain  are  the 
most  barbarous  ever  framed  and  are  adminis- 
tered without  any  care  whatever  for  justice. 
"Vae  victis" — "woe  to  the  vanquished"  is  the 
English  principle  and  the  under-dog,  though 
tortured  to  death,  excites  no  pity. 

There  are  a  thousand  powers  accorded  to  the 
petitioning  creditor  by  which  he  and  his  fel- 
lows can  blackmail  the  honest  debtor  who  only 
wants  time  in  order  to  pay  in  full,  but  I  will  not 
dwell  on  them  or  on  the  assistance  given 
to  the  leeches  by  the  English  officials  in  Bank- 
ruptcy. 

Let  it  be  taken  that  the  debtor  is  made  bank- 
rupt :  he  is  examined  in  public  by  his  creditors 
as  if  he  were  bound  in  a  pillory  and  re-exam- 
ined again  and  again.  His  wife  and  children 
can  be  and  often  are  subjected  to  the  same  tor- 
ture, and  when  all  that  he  has  got  has  been 
taken  from  him,  even  to  the  tools  he  uses  to 
earn  his  living,  his  discharge  may  be  and  often 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?        69 

is  postponed  for  three  or  five  or  seven  years, 
which  means  that  for  this  additional  period 
every  penny  he  can  earn  belongs  to  his  credit- 
ors. 

One  other  provision  will  show  the  spirit 
of  the  law :  suppose  a  wife  claims  this  or  that 
nick-nack  or  jewel  as  hers,  given  to  her  by  her 
husband  years  before  his  bankruptcy  when  he 
was  solvent.  The  object  in  dispute  is  held  to 
belong  to  the  creditors  unless  it  was  given  to 
her  more  than  eight  years  before,  or  she  is  re- 
quired to  prove  that  her  husband  was  solvent 
when  he  made  the  gift.  In  practical  life  every- 
thing she  possesses  that  came  from  her  bank- 
rupt husband  is  ruthlessly  torn  from  her  by 
the  creditors. 

Such  detestable  and  stupid  provisions  are  not 
the  worst  features  of  this  extraordinary  pro- 
cedure. If  at  any  time  before  his  discharge, 
the  bankrupt  incurs  a  debt  of  £20  or  more 
without  informing  the  lender  or  shop-keeper 
of  the  fact  that  he  is  an  undischarged  bank- 
rupt, he  is  held  to  have  obtained  money  under 
false  pretences  and  is  sent  to  prison  for  a  year 
or  so  and  the  burden  of  proof  is  on  the  debtor. 

A  thousand  incredible  instances  of  the  sav- 
age cruelty  of  these  laws  could  be  given ;  but 
the  mere  outline  is  sufficient;  the  mere  fact 
that  the  bankrupt  is  stripped  bare  of  all  he  pos- 
sesses (if  he  fails  to  disclose  any  property  of  the 
value  even  of  a  dollar,  he  is  proceeded  against 
criminally  for  fraud)  and  then  is  regarded  for 


70        ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

a  series  of  years  as  still  "undischarged"  and 
therefore  earning  money  merely  for  his  credit- 
ors; I  say,  the  mere  fact  shows  that  the  Eng- 
lish bankruptcy  laws  stand  alone  in  the  world 
as  the  most  barbarous,  the  most  iniquitous  ever 
framed. 

They  are  so  extravagantly  inhuman  that  they 
defeat  their  own  purpose.  The  "undischarged 
bankrupt"  usually  conceals  the  fact  and  runs 
the  risk  of  prison,  and  when  he  earns  money 
necessary  to  keep  himself  and  those  dear  to 
him,  he  doesn't  dream  of  handing  it  over  to  his 
creditors.  He  thereby  commits  fraud,  but  ne- 
cessity knows  no  law.  Heine  puts  it  humor- 
ously when  he  says  that  the  figure  of  justice  in 
London  has  lost  her  scales,  but  carries  the 
sword  bared  in  her  hand.  He  sees  that  Eng- 
land is  still  almost  a  feudal  state  and  "if  the  per- 
son and  property  of  the  people  are  now  de- 
pendent on  the  laws  and  not  as  aforetime,  on 
the  whim  of  a  lord,  still  these  laws  are  only  an- 
other sort  of  teeth  with  which  the  privileged 
class  seizes  and  tears  the  ordinary  citizen.  No 
tyrant,"  he  adds,  "was  ever  so  barbarous  as  the 
English  laws."  If  Heine  was  justified,  and  I 
think  he  was,  what  can  be  said  for  English  free- 
dom? 

If  one  cares  to  realize  how  hopelessly  Eng- 
land lags  behind  the  foremost  civilized  coun- 
tries, he  has  only  to  compare  the  provisions  of 
the  French  bankruptcy  laws  with  those  of  the 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?        71 

English.  But,  then,  the  French  laws  were 
framed  by  Napoleon,  a  great  man,  and  not  by 
greedy  shopkeepers.  Under  the  "Code  Na- 
poleon," no  officer  of  the  army  or  navy  can  be 
made  a  bankrupt ;  no  artist  or  scientist  or  man 
of  letters ;  only  the  trading  classes  whose  sole 
object  it  is  to  make  money,  can  be  subjected 
to  this  degradation.  The  attempts  of  the  Eng- 
lish law  to  turn  unfortunate  men  into  criminals 
by  withholding  their  discharge  for  years,  are 
unknown  to  the  humaner  legislation  of  conti- 
nental Europe. 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  contrast  the  pro- 
visions of  the  present  English  law  with  Shake- 
speare's views  in  "Cymbeline."  That  they  are 
his  own  opinions  is  manifest,  for  they  are  in- 
finitely more  humane  than  any  legislation 
known  to  man  as  yet: 

"I  know  you  are  more  clement  than  vile  men 
Who  of  their  broken  debtors  take  a  third, 
A  sixth,  a  tenth,  letting  them  thrive  again 
On  their  abatement." 

The  creditor  is  vile  according  to  the  wisest 
man  of  our  race  if  he  takes  a  third  or  even  a 
tenth  and  lets  his  debtor  thrive  on  the  rest; 
but  what  shall  be  said  of  the  English  laws 
which  take  all  and  more  than  all,  and  attempt 
even  to  force  the  debtor  to  go  on  for  years  in 
poverty  and  destitution,  working  not  for  his 
wife  and  children  but  for  his  creditors.    Such 


72        ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

greed  is  insane ;  and  the  country  that  can  frame 
such  laws  knows  nothing  either  of  liberty  or  of 
justice. 

It  is  computed  that  the  wealth  of  the  coun- 
try doubles  itself  every  twenty  years  and  the 
first  war  loan  of  fifteen  hundred  million  of 
dollars  was  over  subscribed  in  London  alone 
on  the  first  day.  Compare  this  with  the  well- 
known  fact  that  the  whole  system  of  the  Eng- 
lish Poor  Law  administration  with  its  so-called 
workhouses  has  hopelessly  broken  down 
through  meanness  and  inhumanity,  inhumanity 
so  devilish  that,  like  the  unimaginable  gins  and 
snares  of  the  bankruptcy  laws,  it  defeats  its 
own  object. 

The  cost  of  the  institution  runs  into  millions 
annually,  but  no  poor  man  ever  goes  near  an 
English  workhouse  if  he  can  possibly  help  it. 
The  great  buildings  and  large  staffs  are  all  kept 
up  for  a  few  orphan  children  and  people  on 
the  verge  of  dissolution.  The  stigma  of  the 
poor-house  is  more  loathed  in  England  than 
even  that  of  the  prison.  One  need  not  speak 
of  the  degradation  incurred  nor  of  the  wretched 
food.  One  provision  alone  will  show  how  in- 
sanely cruel  the  whole  system  is. 

If  a  man  goes  into  the  poor-house  to  get  shel- 
ter for  the  night,  he  is  not  allowed  to  leave 
next  morning  at  six  o'clock  to  get  work  even 
though  he  is  strong  and  willing.  He  must  first 
stop  and  break  so  much  stone — an  equivalent 
in  value  to  the  bed  and  food  he  has  had.    Con- 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?        73 

sequently,  he  can  never  get  out  much  before 
noon  when  it  is  practically  impossible  to  find 
work.  In  this  way  British  charity  makes  the 
poor  poorer,  and  degrades  them  into  the  bar- 
gain. No  wonder  Mr.  Sidney  Webb,  the  high- 
est authority  on  the  matter,  writes  of  it  as  fol- 
lows: 

"Underneath  the  feet  of  the  whole  wage- 
earning  class  is  the  abyss  of  the  Poor  Law.  I 
see  before  me  a  respectable  family  applying  for 
relief.  What  do  we  do  to  them?  We,  the  Gov- 
ernment of  England,  break  up  the  family.  We 
strip  each  individual  of  what  makes  life  worth 
living.  When  the  man  enters  the  workhouse 
he  is  stripped  of  his  citizenship — branded  as  too 
infamous  to  vote  for  a  member  of  Parliament. 
Once  in  the  workhouse,  we  put  him  to  toil  or 
to  loiter  under  conditions  that  are  so  demoral- 
izing that  we  turn  him  into  a  wastrel.  And  we 
strip  the  wife  of  her  children.  We  send  her  to 
the  wash-tub  or  the  sewing-room,  where  she 
associates  with  prostitutes  and  imbeciles.  The 
little  children,  if  they  are  under  five,  are  taken 
to  the  workhouse  nursery,  where  they  also  are 
tended  by  prostitutes  and  imbeciles.  There 
they  remain,  day  after  day,  without  ever  going 
down  the  workhouse  steps  until  they  are  old 
enough  to  go  to  the  Poor  Law  school,  or  until 
they  are  taken  down  in  their  coffins,  owing  to 
the  terrible  mortality  among  the  workhouse 
babies." 

One  more  fact  and  it  shall  be  taken  from  the 


74       ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

immediate  present:  The  British  government 
had  been  trying  for  months  past  to  get  its  vol- 
unteer army  on  the  cheap  by  stories  of  German 
barbarism  and  German  atrocities.  At  first  the 
authorities  offered  the  magnificent  sum  of  five 
shillings,  or  a  dollar  and  a  quarter,  a  week  to 
the  poor  widow  whose  husband  had  been  killed 
at  the  front.  They  have  had  to  increase  the 
price  to  seven  shillings  and  sixpence  or  nearly 
two  dollars  a  week.  But  then  came  the  ques- 
tion of  how  much  extra  money  should  be  given 
for  each  child,  so  orphaned.  The  authorities 
fixed  this  in  their  wisdom  at  half  the  price 
which  is  usually  accorded  for  an  illegitimate 
child  under  a  so-called  "affiliation  order."  Af- 
ter this  achievement  nothing  further  need  be 
said  of  British  justice  or  British  magnanimity. 

The  motto  of  England  should  be :  The  poor 
are  our  only  philanthropists ;  they  sell  all  that 
they  have  and  give  to  the  rich. 

But  the  settled  purpose  of  English  law  to 
take  from  the  Have  Nots  everything  they  may 
get,  is  only  the  other  side  of  the  declared  Eng- 
lish desire  "to  give  to  those  that  have."  In  re- 
cent times.  Parliament,  not  content  with  allow- 
ing greedy  individuals  to  steal  the  common  land 
from  the  people,  has  freed  the  land  from  the 
feudal  service  always  expected  from  it  in  the 
past.  The  landlords  now  should  be  compelled 
to  support  the  army  as  they  did  in  the  middle 
ages,  and  so  pay  some  rent  for  this  exclusive 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?        75 

possession,  but  their  burden  has  been  light- 
ened. 

All  the  benefits  which  the  landlords  and  the 
House  of  Lords  have  given  to  themselves  are 
but  a  fleabite  to  the  taxes  which  the  oligarchy 
and  the  new  rich  have  exacted  from  the  grow- 
ing industries  of  the  present  and  the  immediate 
past.  The  story  of  the  founding  of  English 
railways  is  as  fantastic  as  an  Eastern  tale ;  but 
it  belongs  to  the  past,  and  one  example  from 
the  present  will  be  more  convincing.  For  in- 
stance, when  the  late  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain 
was  about  thirty-five  years  of  age  and  the  most 
powerful  citizen  in  Birmingham,  there  was  a 
slum  which  he  resolved  for  the  health  of  the 
town  to  improve  out  of  existence.  When  he 
began  negotiations,  he  found  that  the  individ- 
ual owners  were  determined  to  get  the  utter- 
most farthing  for  their  insanitary  property. 
But  he  was  not  a  business  man  for  nothing. 
He  sought  and  obtained  powers  from  Parlia- 
ment to  expropriate  the  owners  over  a  much 
larger  area  than  he  intended  to  improve.  He 
thus  obtained  a  power  of  bargaining.  "If  you 
won't  take  so  much  for  your  house  and  ground," 
he  said  to  the  too  greedy  landlords,  "I'll  run 
the  main  street  so  as  to  leave  your  property  in 
a  back  alley  untouched."  He  improved  the 
slum  out  of  existence  and  incidentally  the 
health  of  Birmingham  and  was  hailed  on  all 
sides  as  a  benefactor  though  condemned  as 


76       ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

one  who  drove  a  hard  bargain.  When  I  asked 
him:  was  it  true  that  he  had  got  the  land  and 
houses  below  their  proper  value,  he  laughed: 

"Birmingham  is  in  England,"  he  said,  "and 
not  in  Utopia ;  I  had  always  to  pay  from  two  to 
over  three  times  as  much  as  the  property  was 
worth."  The  greedy  individual,  and  especially 
the  landlord,  is  always  favored  in  England. 

The  most  poisonous  development  in  the  leg- 
islation of  the  last  hundred  years  is  the  growth 
of  joint-stock  companies.  They  show  all  the 
evils  of  state-ownership  and  none  of  its  bene- 
fits. Geothe  saw  that  all  industries  should  be 
controlled  by  the  individual  or  by  the  state; 
the  hybred  was  of  the  nature  of  a  monopoly 
and  should  be  prohibited. 

In  France  in  1791,  the  government  passed  a 
law  prohibiting  all  associations  for  the  ex- 
ploiting of  industries,  and  ever  since  the  French 
have  only  admitted  the  right  of  such  associa- 
tions against  their  better  judgment,  so  to  speak, 
and  after  taking  many  precautions.  But,  in 
Great  Britain  joint-stock  companies  have  been 
permitted  and  even  encouraged  to  rob  the  pub- 
lic at  will,  without  incurring  any  responsibility. 
For  five  and  twenty  years  neither  the  promoter 
nor  the  directors  were  held  responsible  for  the 
misstatements  published  in  the  prospectuses 
they  issued  by  the  million.  Lies  are  sacred  as 
the  chief  stock  in  trade  of  the  robbers.  Even 
now,  it  is  possible  in  London  for  one  man  to 
form  a  company  with  half  a  dozen  of  his  clerks. 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?       77 

and  entice  the  public  by  plausible  circulars  to 
lend  him  money  to  buy  stocks  and  shares  with. 
He  may  even  declare  what  dividends  he  finds 
most  likely  to  win  more  clients  and  finally,  un- 
der one  pretext  or  another,  he  can  pocket  the 
money  entrusted  to  him,  and  declare  the  com- 
pany bankrupt.  He  is  then  free  to  begin  the 
game  again  in  the  next  street.  "Heads,  I  win ; 
tails,  you  lose"  on  a  large  scale  is  permitted  by 
the  English  law;  but  the  small  gambler  with 
his  three-card  trick  or  the  thimble-rigger  is  at 
once  arrested  and  sent  to  prison. 

In  France  and  in  Germany,  there  is  careful 
State  supervision  of  all  joint-stock  companies, 
and  the  attempt  to  swindle  is  made  difficult  and 
dangerous.  In  Paris,  a  bank  would  not  dare  to 
put  its  name  on  the  prospectus  of  a  company 
which,  a  couple  of  years  afterwards,  might  fail 
and  go  into  liquidation.  The  customers  who 
had  lost  their  money  would  expect  the  bank  to 
recoup  them,  and  would  certainly  hold  the 
bank  responsible  for  all  false  statements.  But 
in  London,  such  a  swindle  would  be  almost  sure 
to  pass  unnoticed.  The  robbers,  so  long  as 
they  appear  to  have  money,  are  given  every  li- 
cense by  the  English  law,  it  is  only  the  poor 
who  are  harried  by  it,  only  the  unfortunate  who 
need  fear  it. 

This  chapter  on  the  English  sense  of  justice 
should  find  its  fitting  climax  in  some  pages  de- 
voted to  the  "Corruption"  in  England.  I  could 
fill  a  volume  with  facts  gathered  in  a  quarter 


78       ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

of  a  century  spent  in  journalism  in  London; 
facts  which  it  was  impossible  to  publish  in 
Great  Britain  where  truth  itself  is  held  to  be  a 
libel.  There  is  nothing  the  English  pride  them- 
selves so  much  upon  as  their  honesty  and  free 
speech ;  curiously  enough  their  honesty  can  be 
judged  from  the  way  they  have  made  truthful 
speech  impossible.  There  is,  in  my  opinion, 
and  I  shall  give  reasons  for  it  shortly,  more 
commercial  dishonesty  and  more  political 
"graft"  as  well,  to  be  found  in  England  in  a 
day  than  in  the  United  States  in  a  month  or  in 
France  in  a  year.  The  Panama  scandal  could 
never  have  leaked  out  in  Great  Britain  and  if 
it  had  been  published  no  particular  attention 
would  have  been  paid  to  it.  Recently  a  Minis- 
ter who  had  been  a  Chancellor  of  the  Excheq- 
uer was  kind  enough  to  sell  some  of  his  land  to 
the  British  government  at  a  price  about  three- 
fold its  worth;  people  shrugged  their  should- 
ers merely  and  muttered  "bad  taste"  when  some 
radical  journalists  exposed  the  disgraceful 
"graft." 

The  famous  purchase  of  the  Suez  Canal 
shares  was  never  even  scrutinized,  and  yet  it 
would  have  repaid  investigation. 

But  in  spite  of  the  "muzzling"  of  the  press 
in  England,  every  now  and  then  some  swindle 
leaks  out  and  from  its  enormity  any  thinker 
must  draw  dreadful  inferences  which  he  dare 
not  publish  or  even  hint  at  in  any  English  pub- 
lication. 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?       79 

One  example  of  such  corruption  must  be 
given  by  which  the  general  status  may  be 
judged.  Some  four  or  five  years  ago  a  dock- 
yard inspector  rejected  a  battle-ship  built  in  a 
famous  private  shipbuilding  yard.  The  decis- 
ion of  the  official  was  disputed  by  the  private 
firm  in  question  and  the  matter  came  into  the 
public  prints.  It  was  proven  that  a  rudder  had 
been  supplied  with  a  flaw  or  fault  in  the  cast- 
ing and  that  the  fault,  though  measured  by 
feet,  had  been  "puttied  up"  and  then  painted 
over.  Similar  faults  similarly  disguised,  had 
been  discovered  by  the  same  exasperatingly  in- 
quisitive official  in  the  armor  plates  of  the  bow. 
The  question  as  to  whether  putty  painted  over 
was  likely  to  resist  foreign  shot  or  shell  as  well 
as  hardened  steel  was  discussed  in  one  or  two 
papers;  but  nothing  came  of  it.  In  a  day  or 
two,  the  incident  was  forgotten. 

Is  it  wonderful  under  these  circumstances 
that  the  German  navy  and  especially  German 
submarines  have  made  a  great  name  for  them- 
selves at  the  expense  of  the  British  navy  in 
spite  of  its  great  size  and  high  traditions? 

An  instance  of  the  corruption  prevalent  in 
English  business  was  once  brought  to  my  no- 
tice which  I  regard  as  typical  and  informative 
in  spite  of  its  mildness.  The  Prince  of  Monaco 
had  a  large  steam-yacht  built  in  London.  It 
was  built  and  fitted  regardless  of  expense  and 
passed  Ai  at  Lloyd's.  After  delivery  and  ac- 
ceptance the  Prince  found  that  it  had  a  list  to 


8o        ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

one  side,  of  I  shrink  from  saying  how  many  de- 
grees, but  certainly  more  than  five. 

The  Prince  declared  that  he  had  accepted  the 
yacht  because  he  regarded  Lloyd's  certificate 
as  an  absolute  guarantee.  I  thought  that  most 
men  would  have  made  the  same  mistake.  He 
asked  me  would  I  go  with  him  to  Lloyd's  to 
find  out  about  it.  I  was  eager  to  gain  a  new  ex- 
perience. We  went  together  one  morning  to 
Lloyd's  and  after  more  than  an  hour's  search 
found  a  quiet  person  who  undertook  to  give  us 
the  required  information.  When  the  plaint 
was  formulated  he  said  he  knew  nothing  about 
it ;  adding  that  the  fact  of  a  list  of  five  or  even 
ten  degrees  would  not  prevent  a  ship  being 
classed  as  Ai  by  Lloyd's.  I  replied  that  the 
information  was  interesting  and  should  be 
widely  known.  "Would  he  kindly  tell  me  how 
many  degrees  would  prevent  a  ship  from  be- 
ing classed  as  Ai?"  He  replied  curtly  that  he 
could  not  say;  it  would  depend  on  the  ship. 
Thereupon  the  Prince  said  that  he  had  regarded 
the  A I  at  Lloyd's  as  a  proof  of  excellence  of 
design  and  workmanship.  "Was  he  mistaken?" 
The  official  shrugged  broad  shoulders  and  de- 
clared finally  that  "Caveat  emptor"  was  the 
best  rule,  but  he  would  look  into  the  matter 
and  write.  Nothing  valuable  came  from  his 
investigation.  The  Times  refused  to  print  an 
article  giving  a  dispassionate  account  of  this 
transaction.  "The  truth  would  do  English  ship- 
building no  good,"  I  was  informed. 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?       8i 

The  other  day  Sir  Stanley  Buckmaster,  the 
English  Censor,  declared  that  he  regarded  it  as 
an  important  part  of  his  duty  to  prevent  un- 
pleasant truths  from  coming  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  British  public.  "Where  ignorance  is 
bliss,  'tis  folly  to  be  wise"  is  the  English  con- 
viction. 

CHAPTER  VI 

The  German  Nation  and  Its  Ideal 

Goethe  says  that  the  character  of  a  nation 
can  be  judged  by  its  army  and  by  its  laws.  In 
the  present  comparison  between  England  and 
Germany  and  their  respective  ideals,  I  have 
hardly  taken  their  armies  into  account,  but  a 
word  or  two  must  now  be  said  on  the  subject. 

Everyone  knows  in  the  main  what  the  Ger- 
man army  has  done:  everyone  admits  its  as- 
tounding efficiency:  it  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  the  German  example  in  war  as  in  business 
has  raised  our  conception  of  the  possible  effi- 
ciency of  work  in  this  world. 

It  is  more  difficult  to  show  what  the  English 
army  has  achieved ;  but  now,  after  eight  months 
and  a  half  of  war,  "Le  Matin"  publishes  a  state- 
ment which  puts  the  matter  in  a  nutshell.  The 
Russian  troops,  the  Paris  paper  states,  are  hold- 
ing 857  miles  of  frontier ;  the  Servian  and  Mon- 
tenegrin armies,  219;  the  French  troops  544 
miles;  the  English  troops  31 3^  miles,  and  the 


82        ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

Belgian  troops  17J4  miles.  It  would  be  paint- 
ing the  lily  to  comment  on  this  fact.  From 
another  article  we  learn  that  the  British  have 
already  spent  more  money  on  the  war  than  the 
French.  In  its  issue  of  April  loth,  the  London 
Times  attacks  what  it  calls  "the  muddle  in  the 
war-office"  on  account  of  "the  shortness  of  mu- 
nitions." The  paper  declares  that  it  is  not  the 
drinking  habits  of  the  working  man  that  is  at 
fault  but  "the  lack  of  foresight  and  organiza- 
tion" at  Headquarters,  and  finally  points  to 
Lord  Kitchener  as  responsible  by  asserting 
that  "an  end  must  be  put  to  the  tradition  that 
soldiers  should  control  'war  manufactures' " 
for  "they  have  brought  the  country  to  the 
verge"  of  shortage  in  what  is  most  necessary. 
And  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  money  is  no 
object  and  that  the  British  could  have  drawn 
all  the  supplies  they  wanted  from  the  United 
States,  thanks  to  our  convenient  definition  of 
neutrality. 

These  few  facts  and  the  strictures  of  The 
Times  more  than  justify  all  I  have  said  of  the 
English  governing  classes  and  their  incompe- 
tence :  they  are  incapable  even  of  selecting  de- 
cently efficient  instruments. 

In  regard  to  law  and  the  administration  of 
justice,  the  almost  incredible  backwardness  of 
England  has  been  established  by  a  thousand 
facts  and  where  necessary  by  comparisons  with 
France.     In  this  or  that  minor  matter  some 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?       83 

small  errors  may  have  crept  in ;  but  the  indict- 
ment as  a  whole  stands  four-square. 

It  becomes  necessary  now  to  speak  of  Ger- 
many at  length  and  I  must  admit  that  I  do  not 
know  Germany  nearly  so  well  as  I  know  Eng- 
land. I  lived  in  England  the  major  part  of  five 
and  twenty  years,  and  studied  and  wrote  about 
it  day  by  day.  In  Germany  I  spent  only  five 
years;  but  the  years  passed  there,  were  sensi- 
tive years  of  youth,  when  I  was  quick  to  receive 
and  record  new  impressions,  and  I  hope  my 
comparative  ignorance  of  the  intimate  life  of 
the  German  people  may  not  vitiate  my  conclu- 
sions. For  in  this  matter,  ignorance  is  a  poor 
guide  even  when  winged  with  imagination.  If 
I  had  never  worked  and  played  and  argued 
with  German  youths  and  talked  with  German 
girls;  if  I  had  never  thrilled  to  German 
thoughts,  nor  recited  German  verses  in  tranc- 
ing moonlight,  I  might  perchance,  have  been 
able  to  persuade  myself  as  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  ap- 
parently has  done,  that  the  French  and  English 
are  "intellectually  more  virile  peoples."  As  it 
is,  I  don't  believe  that  the  countrymen  of 
Goethe,  Schopenhauer,  and  Helmholtz  need  fear 
comparison  with  any  of  the  sons  of  men  in  pure 
intelligence  and  when  it  comes  to  virility  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  nation  which  was  cradled 
by  Bismarck  and  now  holds  Russia  back  with 
one  hand  and  France  and  Belgium  and  Eng- 
land with  the  other,  and  after  nine  months  of 


84       ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

war,  against  odds  of  three  to  one,  is  still  fight- 
ing everywhere  in  the  enemies'  countries,  need 
bow  to  no  rival  in  the  manly  virtues,  Mr.  Wells 
declares  that  the  Allies  are  winning  and  "will 
continue  to  win";  but  Germany,  I  imagine,  is 
fairly  content  with  that  sort  of  defeat  which 
has  given  her  all  Belgium  to  the  sea,  together 
with  one-tenth  of  France,  and  on  the  other 
frontier  has  brought  her  to  the  gates  of  War- 
saw. 

Mr.  Arthur  Balfour,  once  upon  a  time  Prime 
Minister  of  Great  Britain,  and  renowned  for 
the  well-bred  interest  he  takes  in  philosophy, 
did  not  hesitate  at  the  last  Lord  Mayor's  Ban- 
quet to  talk  of  Germany  as  "the  enemy  of  civ- 
ilization." 

Civilization  is  a  parlous  word :  but  if  we  take 
it  to  mean  the  humanization  of  man  in  society, 
it  ought  to  be  possible  to  make  Mr.  Balfour 
ashamed  of  his  ridiculous  statement,  even 
though  Lord  Rosebery  has  since  backed  it  up 
and  embellished  it.  At  any  rate,  if  Germany 
had  not  done  more  in  the  last  century  or  so  and 
particularly  in  the  last  half  century  for  the 
humanization  of  man  than  England,  I  should  be 
ashamed  of  having  written  this  book.  I  believe 
that  she  has  done  as  much  for  the  ideal  as  even 
France,  and  France's  gift  to  humanity  in  the 
last  century  and  a  half  has  been  out  of  all  com- 
parison greater  than  England's.  Let  me  now 
try  to  state  the  German  case  fairly :  I  shall  cer- 
tainly not  exceed  the  praise  which  Mr.  H.  G. 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?       85 

Wells  lavished  on  her  just  before  the  war  broke 
out. 

A  nation,  like  an  individual,  should  be 
judged  by  the  contradictory  virtues  it  em- 
braces and  reconciles.  A  man  may  be  very 
brave  and  yet  not  excite  our  admiration  more 
than  a  rat  or  a  bulldog  which  displays  the  same 
disdain  of  pain  or  death ;  but  if  the  man  is  not 
only  courageous,  but  gentle  and  considerate  of 
others  he  at  once  approaches  the  ideal.  And 
what  is  true  of  a  man  is  true  of  a  nation.  An 
isolated  or  insular  people  is  expected  to  love 
individual  liberty  and  the  hardy  virtues  that 
spring  from  individual  self-assertion;  but  it 
only  becomes  admirable  to  us  if  it  unites  this 
love  with  a  passion  for  equality  and  even- 
handed  justice  and  a  most  sensitive  considera- 
tion for  the  poor  and  the  outcast  and  the  disin- 
herited. 

Similarly  a  people  devoted  to  the  idea  of  the 
nation;  to  the  self-assertion  and  glorification 
of  the  whole — Deutschland  ueber  Alles — may 
be  expected  to  be  efficient  in  conflict,  to  dis- 
play high  military  virtues  of  foresight,  courage 
and  self-sacrifice;  but  it  can  only  then  become 
entirely  admirable  to  us  when  it  also  shows  a 
sensitive  regard  for  the  rights  of  the  individual, 
for  the  claims  even  of  peculiarly  endowed  in- 
dividuals to  live  their  own  lives  and  cultivate 
their  own  special  powers.  It  is  because  I  be- 
lieve Germany  is  nearer  the  ideal  even  on  this 
side  than  England,  that  I  wish  to  persuade  my 


85        ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

American  countrymen  to  reconsider  the  whole 
subject.  There  is  more  individual  liberty  to- 
day in  Germany  than  there  is  in  England: 
greater  freedom  of  speech  and  writing. 

I  do  not  wish  to  represent  Germany  as  an 
ideal  state,  or  the  German  people  as  compact 
of  all  the  virtues.  I  have  no  desire  to  color  or 
to  overstate  the  truth.  Germany  is  a  militant 
hierarchy,  an  instrument  that  is  of  conflict  and 
I  would  wish  it  to  be  an  industrial  democracy. 
But  there  is  no  doubt  that  this  hierarchy  is  ac- 
cepted and  beloved  by  the  vast  majority  of  the 
German  people  just  as  the  hereditary  oligarchy 
is  accepted  and  beloved  by  the  vast  majority  of 
Englishmen. 

The  French  republic  appears  to  me  to  be  the 
higher,  the  more  modern  form  of  government, 
better  adapted  to  modern  industrial  conditions. 
I  prefer,  too,  the  greater  equality  shown  in 
French  life  and  the  deeper  feeling  for  justice 
which  animates  all  the  laws  and  institutions  of 
that  noble  French  people.  In  the  quarrel  be- 
tween France  and  Germany  I  lean  to  the  side 
of  France  and  pray  for  some  equitable  settle- 
ment of  the  two  disputed  provinces.  But,  as 
between  England  and  Germany,  no  lover  of  the 
ideal  can  hesitate  for  a  moment.  There  is  much 
the  same  hierarchy  in  England  as  in  Germany, 
the  same  hereditary  nobility,  but  in  Germany 
it  is  alive  and  useful,  v/hile  in  England  it  is 
v/orse  than  dead  and  useless.  In  Germany,  the 
aristocracy  regards  itself  as  the  steel  head  of 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?       87 

the  German  lance  and  really  displays  all  the 
warrior  virtues  in  their  highest  form.  One 
may  detest  the  Preussicher  Leutenant;  but  he 
is  not  to  be  despised.  One  has  to  admit  that 
he  knows  his  job  and  does  it,  that  he  is  super- 
latively efficient,  that  he  has  all  the  Spartan 
virtues  with  a  more  than  Spartan  power  of  in- 
fecting his  dependents  and  social  inferiors 
with  his  own  manly  and  austere  enthusiasm. 

The  prowess  of  the  English  aristocrat  on 
the  other  hand,  is  displayed  chiefly  in  pleasures 
and  sports.  He  toils  not,  neither  does  he  spin 
and  while  he  regards  work  as  beneath  him  and 
knowledge  as  contemptible,  his  example  as  a 
parasite  drifts  downward,  like  water  on  sand, 
infecting  all  the  less  favored  millions  of  his 
countrymen  with  a  false  and  base  ideal. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  German  ideal  and 
see  what  it  implies  and  its  results.  The  Ger- 
man wants  a  perfect  state.  How  near  does  he 
come  to  realizing  his  desire? 

The  idea  of  a  perfect  state  is  very  like  the 
idea  of  a  perfect  individual.  The  phrase  is 
somewhat  vague :  one  may  regard  Pericles,  or 
Lincoln,  or  Jesus  as  models,  yet  these  are 
all  very  dissimilar  personalities.  Curiously 
enough,  however,  as  soon  as  we  think  of  "per- 
fection" in  this  way  we  are  struck  at  once  by 
the  astonishing  similarity  between  the  Eng- 
lish and  the  German  ideal.  The  first  thing 
taught  to  an  English  boy  at  a  public  school  is 
that  to  be  an  "all-round  man"  he  must  be  brave 


88       ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

and  a  good  fighter  and  always  ready  to  take 
his  own  part.  In  the  current  phrase:  "his 
hands  must  be  able  to  keep  his  head."  Noth- 
ing is  more  despised  than  any  attempt  to  avoid 
fighting ;  any  boy  who  puts  up  with  the  small- 
est slight,  no  matter  what  his  motive  may  be, 
is  usually  set  down  as  a  coward.  Now  this  is 
precisely  the  German  ideal  of  a  state :  the  aim 
is  "all-round"  excellence;  but  first  of  all,  the 
German  State  must  always  be  ready  to  take  its 
own  part  and  never  shirk  fighting. 

Some  of  us  Celts  and  Latins  are  not  in  love 
with  this  ideal;  we  may  regard  defence  as  a 
duty  and  legitimate;  but  we  condemn  aggres- 
sion and  unnecessary  war  as  a  crime  against 
humanity  and  we  regard  large  well-equipped 
armies  and  navies  with  suspicion  as  likely  to 
lead  to  needless  fighting.  But  to  hear  the  Eng- 
lish condemning  the  German  ideal  when  it  is 
their  own  makes  the  judicious  smile. 

It  is  in  accord  with  the  true  values  to  com- 
pare France  and  Germany  and  point  the  moral 
with  an  occasional  glance  at  England,  for 
France,  thanks  to  her  glorious  revolution  and 
to  the  genius  of  Napoleon  is  one  of  the  most 
perfectly  organized  of  modern  states.  First  of 
all  in  efficiency,  as  a  power  of  offense  and  de- 
fense, there  can  be  no  comparison  after  the 
teaching  of  this  war.  But  admitting  that  Ger- 
many as  a  hierarchy  is  naturally  more  efficient 
as  a  military  organism  than  a  democracy,  let 
us  come  to  the  converse  test.    Which  state  is 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?       89 

the  freer?  In  which  is  the  individual  more 
considered? 

In  order  that  the  body  politic  may  be  per- 
fect, each  individual  cell  composing  it  must  be 
perfect  too.  Every  cell  must  be  fed  and  func- 
tioning properly  in  order  that  the  whole  organ- 
ism may  be  at  its  best.  If  the  utmost  individ- 
ual freedom  be  indeed  an  ideal  (which  is  not 
by  any  means  proved,  though  usually  taken 
for  granted  in  America),  then  the  perfect  state 
must  accord  to  each  individual  the  largest  pos- 
sible measure  of  freedom. 

In  1888  Bismarck  declared  that  in  time  the 
Germans  would  overcome  the  hostility  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Alsace-Lorraine.  "We  Ger- 
mans," he  said,  "govern  more  benevolently  and 
humanely  than  the  French."  And  he  went  on 
in  words  which  Mr.  Balfour  ought  to  learn  by 
heart:  "we  are,  besides,  able  to  grant  the  in- 
habitants (of  Alsace-Lorraine)  a  far  greater 
degree  of  communal  and  individual  freedom 
than  the  French  institutions  and  traditions  per- 
mit or  indeed  ever  have  permitted." 

It  looks  to-day  as  if  Bismarck  were  justified 
in  this  remarkable  forecast  for  all  the  repre- 
sentatives of  Alsace-Lorraine  in  the  Reichstag 
voted  with  the  other  Germans  in  favor  of  the 
war-supplies.  Germany  has  won  over  a  hos- 
tile population  in  forty  years,  and  it  has  suc- 
ceeded in  part  by  stimulating  and  satisfying 
the  desire  of  growth  which  is  inherent  in  every 
people,  and  in  part  by  according  to  the  inhabi- 


go       ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

tants  of  Alsace-Lorraine  perhaps  as  large  a 
measure  of  communal  and  individual  freedom 
as  they  were  accustomed  to  as  Frenchmen. 
Now,  as  Mr.  Balfour  was  not  ashamed  of  gov- 
erning Ireland  after  more  than  a  century  of  so- 
called  British  freedom  by  throwing  his  politi- 
cal opponents  into  prison  without  trial  and 
tyrannizing  over  the  whole  country  with  a  des- 
potic Crimes  Act,  he  will  no  doubt  be  glad  to 
learn  how  "the  enemy  of  civilization,"  as  he 
loves  to  call  Germany,  succeeded  where  the 
pink  of  civilization  and  propriety,  when  en- 
gaged in  a  similar  task,  failed  lamentably. 

First  of  all,  Alsace-Lorraine  under  German 
rule  participated  in  the  extraordinary  growth 
of  population  and  trade  which  has  changed  the 
face  of  Germany  in  the  last  twenty  years;  the 
two  provinces  have  grown  in  population  and 
prosperity  as  much  as  Ireland  has  shrunk  in 
the  same  time,  and  prosperity  is  a  potent  fac- 
tor always  making  for  content.  Then,  too, 
German  rule  has  not  diminished  freedom  in 
Alsace-Lorraine. 

Both  France  and  Germany  are  self-governed 
in  the  largest  sense  of  the  word;  both  enjoy 
manhood  suffrage  and  are  thus  far  in  advance 
of  Great  Britain  with  her  suffrage  restricted 
by  property  qualifications  as  well  as  by  the 
plural  voting  of  the  rich.  But  in  France  au- 
thority has  always  been  more  centralized  than 
it  is  in  Germany.  Since  the  time  of  Tacitus, 
the  Germans  have  always  had  a  large  meas- 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?       91 

ure  of  communal  freedom  and  communal  pow- 
er. The  saying,  "L'etat  c'est  moi"  of  Louis 
XIV  was  never  true  of  Germany.  In  Germany 
each  commune  has  some  power  in  determin- 
ing its  own  taxes  and  in  spending  them  accord- 
ing to  its  desires ;  whereas  in  France  the  orders 
come  from  Paris  and  thus  democratic  France, 
strange  to  say,  has  hardly  a  larger  measure  of 
communal  self-government  and  individual  free- 
dom than  "the  military  despotism"  of  Messrs. 
Balfour,  Wells  and  Bennett.  In  military  effi- 
ciency, in  discipline,  forethought  and  devotion, 
Germany  stands  easily  first  among  the  nations 
and  in  the  opposite  hardy  virtues  which  flour- 
ish in  individual  and  communal  liberty,  it  is 
not  inferior  even  to  France. 

France  possesses  several  marked  advantages : 
first  of  all  its  land  was  fairly  partitioned  out 
amongst  its  inhabitants  by  the  revolution.  It 
would  have  been  better  had  it  been  kept  as  a 
possession  by  the  State  and  rented  out  for 
terms  of  years.  Private  property  in  what  is  a 
monopoly  by  nature  is  a  mistake;  it  ensures 
thrift,  but  it  brings  out  sordid  meanness ;  it  is 
mainly  responsible  for  the  limiting  of  the  birth- 
rate in  France ;  it  hinders  growth  without  pro- 
ducing an  equivalent  measure  of  happiness. 
But  in  contrast  with  the  legalized  robbery  of 
British  landlords,  the  comparatively  equal  di- 
vision of  the  land  in  France  is  almost  ideal.  It 
ensures  wide-spread  well-being  and  happiness. 
It  is  on  the  whole  preferable  to  the  greater  in- 


92        ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

equality  seen  in  Germany.  It  satisfies  more 
completely  the  desire  for  justice,  while  being 
hardly  less  favorable  to  growth. 

When  I  study  the  codified  laws  of  Germany, 
the  result  of  twenty  years  of  labor,  I  find  them 
inferior  in  nearly  every  respect  to  the  Code 
Napoleon.  The  bankruptcy  laws  are  nothing 
like  so  generous  as  those  of  France,  though  far 
more  humane  than  those  of  England.  The  de- 
sire of  all  German  Courts  of  justice  is  evidently 
to  arrive  at  a  compromise  or  reasonable  com- 
position of  every  dispute  as  quickly  and  as 
cheaply  as  possible.  The  lower  courts  espec- 
ially, the  Amtsgerichte  and  Landesgerichte  and 
their  judges  appear  to  be  inspired  with  this  in- 
tention, and  in  consequence,  business  disputes 
are  settled  with  wonderful  expedition  and  at  a 
ridiculously  small  cost. 

I  regard  both  the  German  and  French  judges 
as  superior  to  English  judges.  The  French 
judges  are  less  pedantic,  and  much  fairer- 
minded  than  the  English  while  the  Germans 
are  better  informed.  The  judges  of  both  the 
continental  nations  strike  one  as  modern  and 
cosmopolitan,  whereas  the  English  judges  even 
of  the  Court  of  Appeal  are  apt  to  be  pedantic 
or  whimsical;  insular,  in  fact;  they  usually 
know  at  most  the  rudiments  of  one  modern 
language,  but  certainly  not  two  or  more;  and 
have  no  knowledge  of  any  other  social  con- 
ditions, save  those  of  England. 

The  laws  and  the  judges  of  these  countries 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?       §3 

may  be  tested  by  their  attitude  toward  women. 

If  we  take  the  position  of  married  women 
and  the  laws  relating  to  divorce,  we  are  at  once 
brought  face  to  face  with  startling  and  almost 
inexplicable  differences.  Divorce  is  very  much 
cheaper  and  more  easily  obtained  in  Germany 
or  in  France  than  in  England.  Only  in  Eng- 
land is  the  desire  for  divorce  on  the  part  of 
both  husband  and  wife,  a  reason  for  not  grant- 
ing it.  When  both  parties  to  the  contract  are 
eager  to  withdraw  from  it,  then  the  English 
law  with  whimsical  unreason  refuses  to  set 
either  of  them  free. 

In  both  the  continental  countries  the  adul- 
tery of  the  husband  is  sufficient  ground  not 
only  for  divorce  and  large  alimony,  but  also  to 
ensure  that  the  guardianship  of  the  children  is 
given  to  the  wife  and  mother.  In  England, 
cruelty  must  be  proven  against  the  husband  as 
well  as  unfaith ;  the  allowances  for  alimony  are 
notoriously  smaller  in  proportion  to  wealth  and 
there  is  evidence  of  a  constant  desire  to  prefer 
the  guardianship  of  the  father  though  guilty  of 
adultery  to  that  of  the  faithful  wife. 

The  status  of  educated  women  is  compara- 
tively high  in  both  France  and  Germany  and 
low  in  England.  There  are  many  practising 
women-lawyers  and  barristers  in  France  and 
not  one  in  Great  Britain  or  in  Germany.  There 
are  many  more  women  doctors  in  France  and 
in  Germany  than  there  are  in  Great  Britain. 
In  fine,  everyone  who  has  studied  the  matter 


94        ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

knows  that  while  education  is  esteemed  in 
France  and  honored  in  Germany,  it  is  rather 
disdained  in  England  and  especially  is  this  true 
in  regard  to  women. 

There  are  other  and  even  higher  tests  by 
which  the  health  of  a  national  organism  can  be 
judged.  In  our  industrial  civilization,  with  our 
mastery  of  natural  forces  and  consequent  enor- 
mous and  unprecedented  increase  of  wealth,  it 
was  only  to  be  expected  that  nine  men  out  of 
ten  would  rush  to  get  rich  and  would  crowd  all 
the  avenues  leading  to  wealth.  In  the  mad  rush, 
which  country  has  taken  most  care  of  the  poor 
and  the  weak  and  the  wastrel,  and  which  coun- 
try has  best  provided  for  growth  by  encour- 
aging every  rare  variety  of  intellect,  talent  and 
character?  Which  nation  has  cultivated  both 
the  weakest  and  the  finest,  the  most  sensitive 
flowers — the  poor  on  one  hand  and  on  the  other 
those  who  steer  humanity,  so  to  speak,  the 
brain-workers  who  do  not  desire  riches  mainly, 
the  Sacred  Band  of  the  Intellectuals,  the  lovers 
of  science  and  thought,  the  artists  and  men  of 
letters? 

The  question  needs  only  to  be  stated  to  be 
answered.  In  both  respects,  Germany  has  done 
much  more  than  any  other  country.  Unem- 
ployment and  poverty  meant  waste  and  ineffi- 
ciency and  consequently,  Germany  with  its  ideal 
of  an  efficient  organism  tackled  the  difficulty  at 
once  and  from  many  sides,  as  a  duty,  and  prac- 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?        95 

tically  put  some  sort  of  end  to  it  by  a  thousand 
agencies,  by  labor  bureaus  in  town  and  country 
on  the  one  hand,  and  by  state-aided  insurances 
against  accident  and  unemployment  on  the 
other.  The  cost  of  guarding  against  the  dam- 
age to  life  and  health  of  the  dangerous  trades 
was  made  a  tax  on  the  industries  themselves 
by  Germany,  while  in  England,  greedy  employ- 
ers are  allowed  to  disregard  even  the  orders  of 
the  Home  Office  and  murder  the  weak  almost 
at  will. 

The  yearly  bill  of  the  German  State  for  the 
care  of  its  sick,  injured  and  aged,  amounts  to 
thirty-four  millions  sterling;  whereas  in  Eng- 
land under  the  Workmen's  Compensation  Act, 
while  less  than  three  millions  sterling  is  paid 
in  compensation,  four  millions  a  year  go  in 
expenses.  Germany  spends  on  social  services 
50  per  cent  more  than  on  her  army  and  navy. 

In  1 88 1,  Bismarck  told  the  world  the  ideal 
of  Germany  in  regard  to  poverty.  "A  State  is 
responsible,"  he  said,  "for  the  things  it  does 
not  do.  Our  laws,"  he  went  on,  "already  shield 
the  laborer  from  starvation.  But  that  is  not 
enough.  The  workman  should  look  forward 
without  fear  to  the  future  and  old  age.  The 
present  bill  intends  to  keep  alive  in  the  poorest, 
the  sense  of  human  dignity  which  even  the 
worst-off  German  shall  enjoy  if  I  have  my  way. 
The  laborer  should  feel  that  he  is  not  going  to 
be  a  mere  almstaker  when  he  is  sick  or  old,  but 


96        ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

that  he  possesses  a  fund  which  is  his  own.'* 
And  then  he  went  on  to  talk  of  a  "Christian 
State"  with  its  wider  responsibiUties. 

For  years  now,  there  has  been  less  unem- 
ployment in  Germany  than  in  any  other  State 
in  Christendom,  less  than  in  the  United  States 
or  even  France  and  the  large  immigration  into 
Germany  alone  of  European  countries,  proves 
the  superior  status  of  the  wage-earner. 

The  problems  of  poverty  and  unemployment 
have  been  practically  solved  in  Germany, 
whereas  in  England  nearly  one-half  of  the  pop- 
ulation always  live  below  the  line  of  normal 
health  and  strength,  while  the  unemployed  and 
starving  constitute,  as  Carlyle  puts  it,  "a 
sloughing  sore,  eating  away  and  enfeebling  the 
healthy  part  of  the  body  politic."  When  I 
think  of  the  two  countries  and  of  the  way  "rich" 
England  has  shuffled  out  of  her  responsibilities 
and  has  not  only  neglected  her  poor  but  does 
more  than  any  other  State  to  degrade  and  in- 
jure them  by  law,  I  am  constrained  to  regard 
England  and  not  Germany  as  "the  enemy  of 
civilization." 

But  it  is  in  the  treatment  of  the  "intellec- 
tuals" that  Germany  ranks  above  all  modern 
States,  while  in  this  particular  England  stands 
somewhat  on  the  level  of  Spain.  It  is  here 
that  we  shall  find  the  true  explanation  of  Ger- 
man progress  and  German  patriotism  and  Ger- 
man pride.  First  of  all,  the  Universities  are 
freer  of  access  in  Germany  than  they  are  in 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?        97 

France  and  of  course,  still  freer  than  in  Eng- 
land. The  chemical  and  physical  laboratories 
supported  by  the  State  in  Germany,  are  more 
numerous  than  in  France  and  ten  fold  more  nu- 
merous than  in  Great  Britain.  There  have  been 
forty-six  Nobel  winners  of  prizes  in  science : 
fourteen  of  them  have  been  Germans,  seven 
have  been  Frenchmen  and  only  five  have  been 
Englishmen:  the  mere  fact  speaks  loudly 
enough. 

The  highly  educated  class  is  thrice  as  large 
in  Germany  in  proportion  to  population  as  it 
is  in  France  and  at  least  ten  times  more  numer- 
ous than  it  is  in  Great  Britain.  I  could  mass 
figures  to  prove  this  and  to  show  the  wonderful 
effect  of  it ;  but  a  few  bare  facts  must  suffice : 
there  are  100,000  University  and  Polytechnic 
students  of  the  first  class  in  Germany  and 
hardly  more  than  10,000  in  Great  Britain  and 
of  these  10,000,  barely  half  are  to  be  compared 
with  the  German  student.  Since  the  founding 
of  the  Empire,  the  population  has  increased 
from  40,000,000  to  70,000,000  and  the  number 
of  students  from  22,000  to  100,000.  And  finally, 
while  the  population  of  Germany  increased  1.4 
in  1913,  the  number  of  students  increased  4.6, 
and  of  the  total  number  4.4  are  women. 

One  result  of  the  widely  diffused  and  better 
education  in  Germany  is  that  artists  and  men 
of  science  and  of  letters  of  the  best  class  have 
a  far  larger  public  in  Germany  to  appeal  to  than 
anywhere    else    in    Europe.      I    have    already 


98        ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

shown  how  infinitely  higher  the  position  of  a 
great  writer  or  thinker  is  in  France  than  in 
England,  and  the  position  of  such  a  man  in  Ger- 
many is  as  good  as  it  is  in  France.  Take  the 
highest  class  of  all,  the  prophets  and  lovers  of 
the  deeper  truths,  who  usually  are  disliked  by 
their  contemporaries  for  they  live  "on  the  fore- 
head of  the  time  to  come"  as  Keats  puts  it,  and 
consider  their  status.  Friedrich  Nietzsche  who 
loved  strength  and  believed  in  the  superman 
and  hated  the  household  German  virtues  and 
the  homely  German  life,  nevertheless  found 
readers  and  passionate  support  in  Germany.  A 
generation  or  two  earlier,  Heine  mocked  and 
made  fun  of  Germany  from  one  end  of  his  life 
to  the  other,  but  yet  he,  too,  was  read  and 
loved  by  thousands  of  Germans,  But  what 
prophet  has  ever  been  honored  in  England  dur- 
ing his  own  lifetime?  What  lover  of  men  and 
of  the  humane  ideal  has  ever  found  a  hearing 
in  those  sordid  ears?  It  is  mediocrity  that  is 
loved  and  honored  and  rewarded  in  England, 
mediocrity  and  those  who  defend  the  oligarchy 
and  the  present  condition  of  things  by  praising 
England  and  all  things  English  without  dis- 
crimination or  understanding,  like  Kipling, 
Wells,  Balfour  &  Co. ;  but  the  true  artists  and 
teachers  and  lovers  of  the  ideal,  the  Brownings, 
the  Whistlers,  the  Wallaces,  the  Davidsons  and 
the  Middletons  find  there  a  bitter,  cold  recep- 
tion.   Whenever  I  have  thought  of  England  in 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?       99 

the  last  fifteen  years,  of  her  neglect  of  the  poor 
and  of  her  contempt  of  her  real  teachers  and 
prophets  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  of 
her  great  place  in  the  world  and  her  oligarchy 
and  its  arrogance  and  power,  I  have  always 
felt  that  England  is  the  real  enemy  of  civili- 
zation, for  more  than  a  hundred  years  now  the 
chief  obstacle  to  the  humanization  of  man. 

I  have  asserted  that  life  in  Germany  is  freer 
than  life  in  England  or  even  in  France ;  but  it  is 
extremely  difficult  to  prove  this :  freedom  is  too 
impalpable  to  be  measured  by  figures;  one  is 
of  necessity  thrown  back  on  the  statements  of 
authorities.  The  Reichstag  Deputy  and  con- 
vinced Socialist,  Herr  Sudekum,  the  other  day 
defending  the  German  Socialists'  vote  for  the 
war-credits,  said:  "What  good  would  any 
change  do  us?  In  reality  no  country  is  so  free 
as  Germany.  France  and  England  together 
don't  possess  as  much  freedom  as  our  German 
Empire."  Let  us  take  the  best  American 
opinion  on  the  subject,  that  of  Mr.  Price  Col- 
lier, with  the  understanding  that  Mr.  Collier  is 
more  English  even  than  the  English  in  his  dis- 
like of  governmental  interference  with  the  in- 
dividual; yet  he  says: 

"It  is  a  strange  contradiction  in  German  life 
that  while  they  are  as  a  people  governed  mi- 
nutely and  in  detail,  forbidden  personal  free- 
dom along  certain  lines  to  which  we  should  find 
it  hard  to  submit,  they  are  freer  morally,  freer 


loo      ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

in  their  literature,  their  art,  their  music,  their 
social  life,  and  in  their  unself-conscious  express- 
ion of  them  than  other  people." 

Without  fear  of  contradiction  I  assert  that 
this  so-called  "military  despotism"  has  not 
only  a  larger  measure  of  individual  freedom 
than  England,  but  it  is  also  more  socialistic 
than  England  is  likely  to  become  for  many  a 
day.  The  waste  lands  belonging  to  the  State 
have  been  developed  by  a  magnificent  Forestry 
Department  where  young  Englishmen  are  now 
sent  to  learn  their  work  before  being  dispatched 
to  India  as  forest  officials.  The  German  rail- 
ways belong  to  the  State  and  are  managed 
more  successfully  than  they  were  managed  as 
private  concerns.  And  this  socialistic  institu- 
tion is  cunningly  used  to  increase  the  efficiency 
of  the  army.  It  is  well  known  that  the  real  su- 
periority of  the  German  army  over  all  other 
armies  is  to  be  found  in  its  splendid  non-com- 
missioned officers.  These  men  are  picked  from 
the  ranks  and  spend  fifteen  years  with  the  col- 
ors. But  they  are  kept  at  the  highest  pitch  of 
efficiency  by  the  certainty  and  importance  of 
their  reward.  If  they  do  well,  they  are  all  sure 
of  places  after  their  term  of  military  service, 
either  on  the  state  railways  or  in  the  police. 
And  wherever  they  are  used  they  prove  them- 
selves superbly  efficient,  energetic  and  hon- 
est. In  England,  an  attempt  has  been  made, 
too,  to  ensure  employment  to  old  soldiers,  who 
have  served  twelve  years  with  the  colors.  They 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      loi 

are  enrolled  as  Commissionaires  and  employed 
at  the  doors  of  restaurants  and  clubs  to  play 
polite  and  pouch  tips. 

In  almost  every  respect,  German  life  is  saner 
and  healthier  than  life  in  England. 

In  the  great  majority  of  German  cities  pub- 
lic-utility services,  gas,  water,  electricity, 
street-railways,  slaughter-houses,  and  even  ca- 
nals, docks,  and  pawnshops  are  owned  and  con- 
trolled by  the  cities  themselves.  There  is  no 
loop-hole  for  private  plunder,  but  a  desire  on 
the  part  of  all  citizens  to  enforce  the  strictest 
economy  and  the  most  expert  efficiency. 

Or  take  a  test  not  of  wisdom  in  material 
things;  but  of  character,  and  of  morals  in  the 
highest  sense.  I  remember  in  Germany,  thirty 
years  ago,  there  were  many  Brod-Studenten, 
students  who  had  to  gain  a  living  from  the 
knowledge  acquired  in  the  University ;  but  they 
were  conscientious.  At  that  time,  there  were 
several  thousand  places  as  Christian  pastors 
unfilled  in  Protestant  Germany.  Thousands  of 
students  wanted  a  decent  living  but  would  not 
preach  or  practise  a  religion  they  no  longer  be- 
lieved in,  for  what  Emerson  calls  "the  ignoble 
pleasures  of  bed  and  board."  But  all  the  vicar 
and  curate  places  in  England  are  filled  by  men 
only  too  eager  to  compromise  with  conscience 
if  by  so  compromising  they  can  obtain  an  ease- 
ful life  and  good  position  without  much  work; 
a  vicar's  post  to-day  in  England  is  called  a  "liv- 
ing." 


102      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY— ? 

Many  years  ago,  the  late  Cecil  Rhodes  told 
me  of  his  intention  to  bring  University  stu- 
dents from  all  the  colonies  and  from  America 
and  Germany  to  Oxford.  I  could  not  help 
laughing,  the  scheme  seemed  to  me  fantasti- 
cally absurd.  Fancy  bringing  real  University 
students  down  to  a  high-school  like  Oxford, 
where  men  are  treated  like  boys  and  con- 
strained to  go  to  Chapel  in  the  morning  whether 
they  wish  to  or  not  and  to  be  in  their  college 
at  night  by  nine  or  ten  o'clock. 

"No,  no,  Rhodes,"  I  cried,  "if  you  want  to  do 
good,  send  hundreds  of  English  students  from 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  each  year  to  some 
German  University,  and  come  to  think  of  it,  you 
might  send  a  hundred  members  of  Parliament, 
too,  and  half  a  dozen  Ministers.  Then,  indeed, 
you  might  in  time  help  to  achieve  the  impossi- 
ble and  make  of  England  a  modern  State." 

Let  me  once  again  quote  Mr.  Price  Collier. 
In  the  chapter  on  "The  Land  of  Damned  Pro- 
fessors" he  sums  it  all  up  thus :  "It  remains  to 
be  said  that  Germany  has  trained  her  whole 
population  into  the  best  working  team  in  the 
world.  Without  the  natural  advantages  of 
either  England  or  America  she  has  become  the 
rival  of  both.  Her  superior  mental  training 
has  enabled  her  to  wrest  wealth  from  by-prod- 
ucts." .  .  .  And  "the  best  schools  in  Germany 
he  assures  us,  "are  the  Army  and  the  Navy." 

Parliament  has  passed  over  ten  thousand 
laws  in  England  in  the  last  fifty  years  and  not 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      103 

one  has  ever  served  as  model  or  example  or 
been  copied  or  adopted  in  any  other  European 
country.  But  Mr.  Lloyd  George  has  attempted 
lately  to  introduce  into  England  the  whole  Ger- 
man system  of  insurance  against  accident  and 
sickness  and  Mr.  Winston  Churchill  has  tried 
tardily  to  imitate  the  German  Labor  Exchanges 
which  give  information  about  employment,  but 
here  as  always  what  Heine  calls  "der  Fluch  der 
Halbheit,"  or  "the  curse  of  the  half-way  meas- 
ure" is  over  everything  in  England  and  must 
necessarily  be  till  the  land  is  retaken  by  the 
people  and  the  rule  of  the  oligarchy  is  ended. 

The  whole  position  of  Germany — her 
strength  and  her  necessities — was  admirably 
defined  by  Bismarck  as  early  as  1888.  The 
speech  is  known  by  the  great  word,  "We  Ger- 
mans fear  God  and  naught  else  in  the  world." 
It  is,  I  think,  the  greatest  speech  of  the  last 
hundred  years.  It  may  well  be  compared  with 
Lincoln's  noble  speech  at  Gettysburg.  Here  is 
one  most  significant  passage : 

"The  Franco-Russian  press  within  which  we 
are  squeezed,  compels  us  to  hold  together,  and 
by  this  pressure  our  cohesive  force  is  greatly 
increased."    And  afterwards  this : 

"God  has  placed  us  where  we  are  prevented, 
thanks  to  our  neighbors,  from  growing  lazy 
and  dull." 

And  this  brings  me  naturally  to  the  central 
and  highest  truth  of  all :  every  handicap  in  life 
is  an  advantage  to  the  strong.    It  was  the  stut- 


104      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

tering  speech  of  Demosthenes  that  made  him 
the  best  o£  orators;  it  was  the  low  birth  and 
poverty  and  scanty  education  of  Shakespeare 
that  made  him  our  chief  of  men.  It  is  Ger- 
many's position  ringed  round  by  watchful, 
greedy  foes  that  has  made  Germany  great.  She 
had  to  solve  the  problems  of  life  honestly  and 
sincerely  or  go  under,  and  conscious  of  her 
strength  and  believing  in  knowledge,  she  solved 
them  one  after  the  other,  each  conquest  giving 
her  assurance  of  the  next. 

Was  she  weak?  Effort  and  training  would 
make  her  strong.  Was  she  ignorant?  Cheap 
schools  and  universities  would  bring  knowl- 
edge. Had  the  old  apprentice  system  broken 
down?  Technical  schools  would  better  the  old 
training.  Was  she  poor?  Work  and  knowl- 
edge would  give  her  wealth.  Was  her  strength 
being  drained  by  the  unemployed  on  the  one 
hand  and  emigration  on  the  other?  Well,  she 
did  her  best  to  provide  employment  for  all  and 
as  she  took  care  of  the  poor,  emigration  ceased 
and  the  population  grew  and  with  growth 
everywhere  and  success  came  the  result  of 
growth,  the  pride  of  accomplishment.  Her 
envious  critics  say  that  Germans  are  conceited 
and  self-assertive,  but  no  nation  has  ever  made 
such  progress  as  Germany  has  made  in  the  last 
twenty  years  and  are  not  all  strong,  successful 
men  apt  to  be  conceited? 

One  story  which  I  read  recently  in  a  New 
York  paper  gives  me  the  true  spirit  of  modern 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      105 

Germany.  An  American  correspondent  in  Ber- 
lin wrote  saying  that  what  surprised  him  most 
of  all  was  the  high  cheerfulness  of  the  people: 
the  mother  and  sisters  seeing  the  son  and 
brother  off  to  the  war,  go  smiling  and  with 
only  one  word  on  their  lips — gratuliere;  the 
girl  going  to  meet  her  lover  who  was  return- 
ing from  the  war  without  his  right  arm ;  "gra- 
tuliere," she  cries  bravely,  "  'twas  lost  for  the 
Fatherland."  On  every  side,  no  sorrow,  no 
tears  allowed ;  nothing  but  gratuliere ! 

No  wonder  Germany  stands  victorious  as 
the  first  of  modern  states.  It  is  not  her  army 
or  her  schools,  or  her  growth  in  population  or 
in  wealth,  still  less  her  constitution  or  her 
methods  admirable  though  many  of  them  are, 
which  gives  her  the  laurel-wreath  of  the  world's 
reluctant  admiration ;  it  is  the  spirit  informing 
and  inspiring  the  whole  organism,  the  resolve 
to  live  greatly  or  die  greatly  but  not  to  live 
ignobly  or  on  sufferance  as  parasite  or  subject; 
it  is  the  understanding  that  this  life  is  our  great 
opportunity,  that  here  and  now  if  we  men  will, 
we  can  conquer  all  difficulties  and  overcome  all 
enemies  and  turn  all  stumbling-blocks  into 
stepping-stones.  It  is  the  new-bom  faith  in 
man — the  consciousness  of  man's  power  and 
the  glory  of  man's  achievement — that  has  made 
Germany  great  and  in  spite  of  all  odds  and  all 
alliances,  will  continue  her  in  victory! 


CHAPTER  VII 
Paris  in  the  First  Weeks  of  War 

Life  in  Paris,  even  in  mid-summer,  is  often 
prolific  of  tense,  dramatic  moments,  but  July, 
1 914,  might  be  called  in  French  fashion — The 
Month  of  Sensations. 

First  of  all,  the  Caillaux  trial,  ending  in  the 
acquittal  of  Madame  Caillaux  amid  demonstra- 
tions of  discontent  on  the  Boulevards. 

Then  the  news  that  Juarez,  the  great  socialist 
orator  and  leader  had  been  shot  dead  when  din- 
ing quietly  in  a  little  restaurant  on  the  corner 
next  his  newspaper  office:  a  dreadful  crime, 
inexplicable,  stupid,  making  us  realize  the  ap- 
palling savageries  that  must  have  gone  on  in 
the  dim  backward  and  abyssm  of  time  and  are 
fated  to  return  sporadically  in  senseless  lust  of 
slaughter,  in  murder  and  assassination!  Shall 
we  never  outgrow  the  cave-man? 

All  the  summer  through,  beneath  the  surface 
there  had  been  a  certain  tension:  "money  was 
tight"  bankers  said,  and  no  sufficient  reason  for 
the  stringency  of  the  market. 

In  those  lazy,  hot  days  we  had  read  of  the 
murder  of  the  Grand  Duke  and  his  wife,  as  of 
something  far  off  and  comparatively  unimport- 
ant; then,  afterwards,  of  the  Austrian  note  to 
Servia. 


xoQ 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      107 

Suddenly,  one  morning  at  the  Foreign  Of- 
fice, I  heard  that  Russia  was  mobihzing  and 
the  authorities  were  evidently  anxious.  I  be- 
gan to  grow  uneasy,  apprehensive ;  then  came 
the  German  ultimatum  to  Russia,  and  then 
crash — war;  war,  the  incredible;  war  involv- 
ing France? — the  mobilization  orders  pub- 
lished; the  die  cast!    Hell  let  loose ! 

On  Sunday,  the  2nd  of  August,  Paris  was 
declared  in  a  state  of  siege,  put  under  martial 
law  and  a  military  governor,  and  placarded 
with  notices  that  all  foreigners  must  show  their 
passports  to  the  nearest  Commissioner  of  Po- 
lice and  obtain  his  written  permission  to  reside 
in  the  city  or  to  leave  it.  Forty-eight  hours' 
were  given  as  time-limit  and  yet  we  could  not 
grasp  the  appalling  fact  of  a  world-war. 

That  same  evening  all  Parisians  flocked  to 
the  grand  boulevards,  from  the  Pare  Monceau 
and  the  fortifications,  from  the  Latin  quarter 
and  the  aristocratic  Boulevard  St.  Germain: — 
a  broad  river  of  people  flowing  all  over  the 
street  and  pavements,  men  for  the  most  part, 
with  set  faces  and  eager  eyes,  wondering  what 
the  morrow  would  bring  forth.  Practically  no 
taxis  or  carriages ;  bands  of  foreigners  marching 
through  the  crowd  proclaiming  their  allegiance 
to  France  and  their  love  of  the  French.  First, 
two  hundred  Roumanians  four  deep  with  flags, 
crying  at  intervals  Vive  la  France!;  then  a 
band  of  Italians  followed  by  Spaniards  and 
Greeks,   a   giant  leader   in   national   costume, 


io8      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

white  petticoat  and  all — a  Berlin,  hoo,  hoo !  and 
then  a  small  English  contingent  crying  at  in- 
tervals— vive  la  France !  to  be  answered  by  the 
Marseillaise  taken  up  by  ten  thousand  voices — 
a  certain  solemnity  in  the  great  chant  rising 
and  falling  in  vast  waves  of  sound. 

As  we  went  home  by  the  Place  de  la  Con- 
corde, we  debated  whether  the  English  would 
cast  in  their  lot  with  the  French.  It  seemed  to 
me  almost  certain  they  would ;  the  trade-rivalry 
was  so  strong.  As  we  came  into  the  great 
square,  we  saw  all  the  foreign  demonstrators 
massed  round  the  statue  of  Strassburg,  and 
heard  the  voice  of  some  orator — "France  has 
not  forgotten  her  lost  children  .  ,  .  France  will 
win  them  back  after  forty  years — Alsace  Lor- 
raine— quand  meme." 

We  passed  by  Cleopatra's  Needle  where  the 
guillotine  stood  during  the  Terror.  Were  we 
to  see  such  dreadful  days  again?  The  search- 
light from  the  roof  of  the  Automobile  Club 
swept  over  the  great  square  and  lighted  up  the 
golden  dome  of  the  Invalides;  what  would  he 
who  sleeps  there  so  quietly  say  of  it  all,  the 
great  Captain  and  condottiere  who  has  some  re- 
sponsibility for  these  events  also,  for  he  made 
it  impossible  for  Frenchmen  to  believe  in  de- 
feat. It  is  ten  o'clock  when  we  pass  between 
the  ramping  horses  of  Marly: — 

Up  the  long  dim  road  where  thundered 

The  Army  of  Italy  onward 

By  the  great  pale  Arch  of  the  Star. 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      109 

Another  army  came  down  that  same  road  in 
'70,  an  army  in  Pickel-Hauben — Hammer  or 
anvil — which  will  France  be?  I  was  full  of 
fear.  Modern  v/ar,  like  modern  business,  has 
become  immense,  depends  now  not  on  indi- 
vidual courage  and  initiative  but  on  organiza- 
tion, and  the  Germans  are  as  good  organizers 
as  the  French  are  bad:  anything  might  hap- 
pen, but ...  I  was  anxious,  apprehensive,  shak- 
en with  vague  doubts  I  didn't  want  to  face  in 
definite  words. 

On  Monday  morning  I  awoke  with  a  curious 
feeling  of  expectancy.  I  had  to  see  my  secre- 
tary, an  English  girl,  off  by  the  train.  We 
drove  to  the  Gare  du  Nord,  found  it  blocked 
by  an  immense  crowd  of  people  hastening  to 
leave  the  capital:  sergents-de-ville  every- 
where. The  only  way  to  leave  was  through 
Lille  and  Dunkirk,  all  the  other  lines  were 
taken  up  by  the  mobilization  and  the  two  trains 
for  Lille  already  crammed.  No  more  passengers 
to-day :  not  possible  to  buy  a  ticket ;  no  admit- 
tance even  to  the  station.  What  was  to  be 
done?  I  saw  a  keen  faced  employe  and  spoke 
to  him :  could  he  get  a  young  lady  on  the  train 
even  without  her  luggage?  I  showed  him  a 
louis.  Light  came  into  his  eyes :  "Follow  me," 
he  whispered.  We  sped  round  to  the  back  of 
the  station  to  the  yard  where  we  could  see  the 
rails  and  trains.  A  man  stepped  in  front  of  us 
ordering  curtly  "Demi-tour"  (right  about). 

Our  guide  flourished  a  yellow  piece  of  paper 


no      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

and  said  mysteriously,  "Un  laissez-passer  du 
Prefet"  (an  order  to  pass — from  the  Prefect). 
The  curt  guardian  drew  back  bowing,  and  we 
hurried  across  the  lines  of  rails  and  the  girl 
climbed  into  the  overcrowded  train  and  waved 
"good-bye." 

Coming  outside  the  station  there  was  a  knot 
in  the  crowd,  and  a  heated  argument :  a  big  fair 
man  disputing,  pushed  his  adversary  back 
rudely.  Suddenly  his  enemy  struck  him  in  the 
face,  and  in  a  moment  to  a  cry  of  "Sale  AUe- 
mand,"  the  big  man  was  hurled  on  his  back, 
and  the  crowd  swirled  round  him,  wild  figures, 
striking,  kicking.  In  a  moment  the  sergents- 
de-ville  rushed  in  and  thrust  the  crowd  back^ 
only  just  in  time.  The  big  man  was  plucked 
to  his  feet,  all  limp  and  bleeding,  and  half  car- 
ried, half  pushed  down  the  street  with  the  po- 
licemen all  about  him,  while  here  and  there  an 
excited  onlooker  rushed  out  and  struggled 
through  the  police  to  strike  at  the  pale  face— 
a  grim  foretaste. 

Possessing  no  passport  I  went  to  the  Ameri- 
can Consulate  and  got  a  signed  declaration  of 
American  citizenship  which  I  took  to  the  Com- 
missaire  de  Police  of  my  quarter.  There  was 
an  immense  crowd  before  the  door  and  a  long 
queue  to  boot  of  all  classes.  Automobiles 
ranged  on  one  side  of  the  street,  and  on  the 
other  a  patient  throng.  I  returned  again  at 
nightfall  when  in  the  semi-darkness  a  five  franc 
piece  to  the  sergent-de-ville  gave  me  priority 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      iii 

of  admittance  and  the  required  permits,  to  stay 
in  the  besieged  city. 

The  next  day  was  eventful.  There  were 
hardly  any  taxi-autos  in  the  street,  and  the  few 
were  difficult  to  get  and  dear.  The  Avenue  of 
the  Champs  Elysees  was  empty:  detachments 
of  soldiers  marching  briskly,  laughing ;  passers 
by  on  the  sidewalks  cheering  them  and  now 
and  again  singing  snatches  of  the  Marseillaise. 
Everything  gay  until  we  got  to  the  Bank. 
There  I  was  told  that  I  could  not  draw  even 
the  money  I  had  deposited  a  few  days  before. 
I  could  have  two  hundred  and  fifty  francs  and 
five  per  cent  of  my  money,  but  no  more. 

"Why?"  I  asked. 

The  banker  shrugged  his  shoulders:  "For 
our  protection  against  a  possible  run;  haven't 
you  seen  the  proclamation?" 

The  democratic  French  Government  coming 
to  the  rescue  of  the  richest  corporations  of  the 
city!  An  astounding  fact!  We  were  soon  to 
learn  that  a  similar  "moratorium"  had  been  de- 
clared in  England,  more  drastic  even,  for  a 
week  the  banks  could  close  and  give  nothing. 
All  the  powers  of  organized  society  to  help  the 
richest  and  protect  them ! 

It  took  a  Caesar,  we  said  to  ourselves,  to 
strike  in  on  behalf  of  the  debtors,  and  remit 
one-third  of  their  debts.  Modern  Governments 
protect  the  rich  even  in  democratic  France ! 

No  more  curious,  no  more  significant  fact 
will  be  recorded  of  this  time,  and  more  extra- 


112      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

ordinary  still,  no  one  revolted,  no  one  mur- 
mured even;  the  fiat  was  accepted  universally 
in  patient  quiet.  Think  of  it,  the  man  you  had 
given  a  thousand  pounds  to  keep  for  you.  whom 
you  paid  for  keeping  it,  now  by  law  refused  to 
give  you  back  your  own  money,  and  still  men 
talk  of  justice?  No  other  business  protected, 
but  money  is  protected,  money  that  to-day  is 
all  powerful,  a  god! 

We  lunched  at  the  Ritz  Hotel,  but  before 
sitting  down  we  were  warned  by  the  Manager 
courteously  that  we  must  pay  cash  for  the 
lunch,  credit  having  ceased. 

"But  the  Banks,"  we  say,  "won't  give  us  our 
money."  Mr,  Ellis'  eyebrows  go  up,  his  hands 
shoot  out  in  deprecation  .  .  . 

"We  must  pay  cash  for  everything  we  buy," 
he  says. 

"Que  voulez  vous?"  Everyone  must  pay  cash 
except  the  banker.  How  delightfully  demo- 
cratic ! 

That  afternoon  I  heard  that  a  Maggi  shop 
had  been  wrecked.  I  knew,  of  course,  that  the 
Maggi  milk  establishments  were  founded  and 
run  by  Germans,  but  all  German  shops  were 
not  wrecked.  I  remembered  vaguely  that  a 
couple  of  years  before  there  had  been  a  scan- 
dal about  one  of  these  Maggi  shops:  a  baby 
was  said  to  have  died  of  drinking  the  milk 
they  supplied,  milk  which  had  been  preserved, 
poisoned  if  you  will,  by  boracic  acid. 

We  saw  a  crowd  in  the  distance,  our  chauf- 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      113 

feur  told  us  it  was  a  Maggi  shop.  We  rushed 
there  to  see  the  fun :  as  we  came  up,  the  crowd 
threw  themselves  on  the  windows  and  door,  in 
a  trice  the  flood  burst  in,  the  shop  was  gutted 
and  the  furniture  thrown  into  the  street.  Look- 
ing at  the  wild  angry  faces  of  the  men  and 
women,  we  caught  a  glimpse  of  what  has  been. 
French  nature  has  not  altered  much  in  the  hun- 
dred years  since  the  Revolution  .  .  .  there  may 
be  mad  work  yet. 

On  Wednesday  at  about  eight  o'clock  in  the 
morning  my  servant  came  to  tell  me  that  food 
had  gone  up  in  price,  ham  three  times  as  dear 
as  it  had  been  the  day  before  and  no  credit, 
everybody  had  to  pay  cash,  everybody  except 
the  Banks!  What  was  to  be  done?  Vague 
memories  of  the  former  siege  of  Paris  came  to 
me,  when  dogs  were  sold  dearer  than  hares,  and 
rats  even  had  a  price.  I  sallied  forth  imme- 
diately to  lay  in  a  stock  of  rice,  but  I  was  met 
here,  there  and  everywhere  with  the  fact  that  I 
could  only  buy  small  quantities,  even  for  cash, 
other  people  being  still  more  prescient  than  I 
had  been.  Would  Felix  Potin  the  great  grocer 
be  as  miserly  ?  I  hurried  in  a  taxi  to  his  head- 
quarters to  find  that  Potin  would  only  sell  me 
two  pounds  of  rice  though  I  was  a  well-known 
and  regular  customer.  The  thrill  of  expectancy 
became  tinged  with  vague  anxiety. 

I  wished  to  return  by  the  underground  rail- 
way, the  "metro" ;  "No  trains  for  civilians,  all 
taken  for  troops." 


114      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

Finding  I  had  to  walk,  I  thought  I'd  see  what 
effect  this  holding  up  of  food  supplies  would 
have  on  the  poorer  classes,  so  I  went  down  to 
the  Place  des  Vosges  and  afterwards  to  the 
Quartier  de  St.  Antoine.  In  the  poorer  quar- 
ters the  men  and  women  were  in  the  streets 
in  knots  and  groups,  talking  and  gesticulating 
in  the  eager  vivid  French  way.  Suddenly  ahead 
of  us  a  woman  came  out  in  the  street  crying 
and  shaking  her  fist  at  the  shop  door  she  had 
just  left.  At  once  the  crowd  rushed  towards 
her,  and  in  another  moment  they  had  sacked  the 
shop  and  were  hurrying  away,  this  one  with 
his  arms  laden  with  parcels  of  sugar,  that  one 
with  something  else,  a  woman  with  a  child 
shrieking  over  a  package  she  had  got  hold  of. 
Was  it  another  German  shop?  No!  It  was  a 
French  shop,  this  time,  the  shop  of  a  French 
grocer,  who  had  asked  thirty  sous  for  some  su- 
gar priced  fifteen  sous  the  day  before. 

"Bien  fait,"  was  the  cry,  and  there  was  the 
woman  who  had  begun  the  revolt,  a  notable  fig- 
ure with  her  grey  hair  and  strong  face  set  off 
by  hard  grey  eyes  and  tense  mouth.  "II  a  voulu 
voler,  lui." — "He  wanted  to  rob,  he  did,"  she 
cried.  "Why  should  he  ask  more  for  his  sugar 
to-day  than  he  did  yesterday,  why  twice  as 
much?" 

I  could  not  help  smiling  to  myself.  How  long 
would  the  vaunted  "law  of  the  market"  stand 
as  law  in  these  times?  Clearly  liberty  to  ask 
what  price  you  liked  for  your  goods  was  not 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      115 

going  to  survive  long  in  France.  If  the  state 
protected  the  Banker,  and  held  up  the  money, 
the  poor  would  not  allow  themselves  to  be 
robbed  to  boot  barefacedly. 

An  hour  or  two  later  we  learned  that  an  edict 
had  been  issued  by  the  Military  Governor,  that 
all  eatables  were  to  be  sold  at  the  ordinary 
price,  which  simply  meant  that  from  that  time 
on  we  got  worse  quality.  The  York  ham  sud- 
denly became  uneatable  unless  we  were  willing 
to  pay  two  prices  for  it.  Evidently  it  is  easier 
to  help  the  rich  with  **moratoria"  than  the  poor 
to  food! 

There  is  a  keen  sense  of  justice,  however, 
among  these  fine  French  people :  "Elle  a  bien 
fait"  was  the  verdict  of  the  crowd  on  the  wo- 
man who  would  not  be  overcharged : — "she  did 
quite  right!" 

That  evening  I  heard  from  a  high  official  at 
the  Foreign  Office  that  English  co-operation 
was  certain — the  world  at  war! 

Next  morning  my  barber  became  interesting. 
He  declared  that  the  victory  would  be  imme- 
diate. It  appeared  there  was  a  M.  Turpin,  the 
inventor  of  Melinite,  the  most  famous  of  explo- 
sive powders.  Now  M.  Turpin,  according  to 
my  barber,  had  invented  an  explosive  still 
more  deadly,  when  a  shell  burst  which  con- 
tained it,  its  fumes  killed  everyone  within  a 
quarter  of  a  mile.  "If  the  Germans  get  that," 
he  said,  "they  will  soon  pelt  back  to  Germany." 

When  I  pressed  him  with  questions,  I  found 


ii6      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

he  knew  little  or  nothing  about  the  famous  in- 
ventor; but  hoped  the  more  .  .  . 

Day  after  day,  we  heard  of  hotels  closing  and 
restaurants  shutting  up,  and  theatres  stopping, 
though  the  Theatre  Frangais  went  on  for  about 
a  week.  Paris  was  very  dull  throughout  the 
ten  days  of  active  mobilization;  in  a  state  of 
suspended  animation,  so  to  speak,  but  excited 
and  suspicious  as  one  little  incident  showed, 

I  met  the  postman  at  the  lodge  of  the  Con- 
cierge about  seven  o'clock  one  evening.  He 
was  telling  eagerly  how  the  German  Manager 
of  the  Astoria  Hotel  had  been  found  sending 
wireless  telegrams  to  the  Germans  at  Berlin, 
and  how  he  had  been  hanged  outside  his  hotel. 
The  Hotel  Astoria  being  only  a  few  hundred 
yards  away,  I  hurried  there  to  see  if  the  news 
were  true.  No  sign  of  hanging,  but  after  some 
time  I  was  told  that  the  Manager  had  been  ar- 
rested, and  had  been  taken  away,  but  no  one 
knew  what  had  become  of  him. 

The  first  news  that  came  to  us  from  the  out- 
side was  the  invasion  of  Luxemburg,  then  the 
Germans'  attack  on  Liege  and  England's  rea- 
sons for  joining  the  Allies.  Sir  Edward  Grey 
put  his  case  excellently.  England  was  com- 
pelled to  defend  the  neutrality  of  Belgium,  an 
engagement  of  honor,  he  said.  And  when  Italy 
refused  to  strike  in  with  Germany  on  the 
ground  that  Germany-Austria  were  the  aggres- 
sors, the  case  seemed  complete.  Germany  was 
to  blame.    Yet  I  knew  of  the  envy  underlying 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      117 

the  English  action.  Germany  had  become 
great  too  quickly,  a  formidable  rival  to  English 
industry  and  commerce,  and  had  provided  her- 
self with  a  fleet  to  boot,  that  was  the  real  rea- 
son why  England  drew  the  sword. 

At  first  the  censored  war  news  was  incredi- 
bly good.  The  Belgians  had  thrown  back  the 
Germans.  The  Germans  were  pouring  through 
Luxemburg ;  but  had  been  checked  at  Liege. 
Les  braves  Beiges  had  done  wonders  and  there 
was  Namur  behind,  stronger  still.  Strangers 
shook  hands  in  the  street,  everyone  was  confi- 
dent. 

Day  after  day,  news  of  French  successes. 
The  French  were  pushing  into  Alsace;  they 
had  taken  Mulhouse;  a  few  days  later  they 
had  won  the  mountain  passes,  had  even  reached 
Mount  Donon,  and  were  ready  to  descend  into 
the  plain  before  Strassburg.  In  Lorraine,  too, 
they  were  advancing  victoriously :  astounding 
news!  Were  the  French  then  exceptionally 
brave  or  what  could  be  the  explanation  of 
their  easy  success! 

Then  less  favorable  news — the  Germans  at- 
tacking Liege  had  entered  the  town. 

The  German  Emperor  was  furious  with  Eng- 
land it  appeared,  the  German  Chancellor  too, 
all  raging  against  the  hypocrisy  of  the  English, 
the  people  who  had  promised  solemnly  to  give 
up  Egypt  and  to  leave  the  Boer  republics  alone, 
pretending  to  fight  for  a  promise,  for  "a  scrap 
of  paper."    Mr.  F.  E.  Smith,  lawyer-like,  paint- 


ii8      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

ed  the  lily  by  declaring  that  the  "one  thing 
England  stands  for  in  the  world  is  the  sanc- 
tity of  a  promise — England's  word,  her  bond." 

Then  blow  on  blow, — the  true  truth!  The 
Germans  had  captured  Liege,  and  flung  the 
Belgians  aside.  The  Germans  had  entered 
Brussels,  and  levied  a  war  fine  of  ten  millions, 
sterling.    Even  more  startling  news  followed. 

The  Belgian  Army  had  fled  to  Antwerp ;  four 
German  Armies  were  pushing  through  Belgium 
toward  the  French  frontier. 

Then  grimmer  news  still.  The  French  ad- 
vance in  Alsace-Lorraine  has  been  stopped,  the 
15th  Army  Corps  having  run  away.  It  was 
explained  that  they  were  made  up  of  recruits 
from  the  South — from  Marseilles,  Nice  and 
Toulon: — "Those  wretched  Southerners!" 

Then  came  the  French  Censor's  untimely 
boast  that  the  enemy  was  not  on  French  soil, 
and  on  top  of  that  the  news  of  the  fighting  at 
Charleroi,  and  the  retirement  of  the  French 
within  their  border.  Then  the  English  were 
flung  back  from  Mons.  How  many  of  them 
nobody  could  say.  Some  said  only  two  Army 
Corps,  others  even  less.  The  majority  of  well- 
informed  people  seemed  inclined  to  blame  the 
English  for  the  reverse,  declaring  that  there 
ought  to  have  been  250,000  English  soldiers  in 
the  line  of  battle,  that  the  French  had  told  the 
English  before  the  war  that  less  than  that  num- 
ber would  be  no  good.  It  was  plain  that  both 
the  French  and  English  had  been  taken  by 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      119 

surprise,  outwitted  and  outnumbered  and  flung 
back.    The  Allies  are  retreating. 

Of  course,  the  Censor  told  us  that  all  this 
"retiring"  was  "strategical,"  but  the  retiring 
kept  on  from  day  to  day  at  great  speed.  Opti- 
mism vanished,  one  began  to  see  that  the  Ger- 
mans were  doing  great  things,  sweeping  in  like 
a  tidal  wave,  carrying  everything  before  them. 
To-day  they  were  at  Peronne,  next  day  at  St. 
Quentin,  the  day  after  south  of  Compiegne. 
Every  day  the  beaten  Allied  Army  came  nearer 
Paris  at  an  extraordinary  rate.  Usually, 
armies,  when  unopposed,  move  at  about  ten 
miles  a  day.  This  army  "retiring  for  strategi- 
cal purposes,"  was  hurrying  at  the  rate  of 
twelve  or  fifteen  miles  a  day. 

Then  came  knots  of  English  fugitives  and 
everybody  began  to  rage  against  the  paucity  of 
the  news  and  the  foolish  verbal  euphemisms  of 
the  English  press — all  our  retirings  "strategi- 
cal," practically  "victories."  We  began  to 
doubt  everything  told  us. 

The  stories  of  German  atrocities  grew  with 
the  German  successes  and  soon  became  wholly 
incredible :  German  soldiers  putting  women  in 
front  of  them  when  marching  to  the  attack — 
worse  than  absurd.  Lies,  we  told  ourselves,  in 
war  time  become  as  plentiful  as  bullets,  the 
same  English  papers  that  had  vilified  the  Boers, 
declaring  that  a  thousand  of  them  would  run 
away  from  one  English  company,  now  called 
the  Germans  "Huns"  and  "Savages." 


120      ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

I  recalled  the  universal  verdict  on  the  con- 
duct of  the  Germans  in  the  war  of  '70 ;  no  vic- 
torious soldiers  had  ever  conducted  themselves 
better.  How  could  they  have  suddenly  become 
savages?  All  armies  commit  outrages  occa- 
sionally ;  the  English  ought  to  know  that  better 
than  most  nations. 

How  often  is  a  prize  fight  fought  perfectly 
fairly?  Yet  there  are  always  watchful  eyes  to 
condemn  unfairness  and  a  referee  to  disqualify 
for  a  foul.  Like  the  English  the  Germans  are 
pedants  and  observe  rules  better  than  most 
other  races,  even  the  rules  of  warfare. 

The  truth  is  that  ordinary  men  want  to  be- 
lieve evil  about  their  enemies,  and  this  credu- 
lity produces  atrocities  as  it  once  produced 
miracles.  The  great  German  people  distin- 
guished from  the  time  of  Tacitus  for  their  re)- 
spect  for  women,  cannot  suddenly,  have 
changed  character. 

News  came  of  the  destruction  of  Louvain. 
There  must  have  been  good  reason  for  it,  we 
said,  just  as  we  found  there  was  a  good  reason 
foi  the  running  away  of  the  15th  French  Army 
Corps.  It  appeared  they  had  been  led  to  a  pla- 
teau and  a  German  airplane  had  swung  over 
and  signaled  their  position.  The  plateau 
turned  out  to  be  a  glacis  commanded  by  the 
forts  of  New  Brisach.  In  a  moment  there  was 
a  terrific  cross  fire  sweeping  the  plateau,  a  dev- 
ilish hail  of  shrapnel.  The  15th  Army  Corps 
withered ;  no  soldiers  could  have  sustained  the 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      121 

shock.  But  their  nerve  even  was  not  gone,  for 
a  couple  of  days  later,  they  fought  as  bravely 
as  ever,  under  a  new  Commander, 

All  this  while  Paris  was  becoming  terribly 
depressed.  "It  has  gone  badly  with  us,"  the 
Parisians  said,  "and  the  Censor  is  afraid  to  tell 
us  the  whole  truth."  This  modern  policy  of 
abolishing  war  correspondents  is  the  worst  pos- 
sible policy.  After  all,  when  the  war  corre- 
spondents were  sending  messages,  war  had  its 
compensations.  We  had  dramatic  stories  that 
fired  the  blood,  stories  of  individual  hardihood 
or  magnanimity  or  kindness,  now  nothing  to 
lift  the  spirit  and  reconcile  one  to  the  horrors 
of  the  insane  butchery. 

All  through  those  dreadful  days,  the  conduct 
and  spirit  of  the  Parisians  held  superbly ;  they 
even  disciplined  themselves  to  accept  whatever 
order  was  issued.  The  authorities  were  fright- 
ened of  a  popular  rising;  they  had  not  forgot- 
ten the  commune  of  '70.  They  ordered  the  res- 
taurants to  be  closed  at  eight.  All  restaurants 
were  closed  immediately.  They  warned  against 
crowds  coming  together  in  the  streets,  partic- 
ularly at  night.  Parisians  kept  to  their  houses. 
The  French  to-day  are  able  to  bear  the  worst. 
"If  the  Germans  can  beat  us,"  they  said  prac- 
tically, "why  they  must,  but  we'll  fight  to  the 
end." 

One  instance  of  their  cool  self-control.  It 
became  known  that  the  great  searchlight  that 
played  over  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  every 


122      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

night  was  directed  by  Germans,  the  Parisians 
smiled:  "They  are  some  good  then."  In  '70 
they  would  have  cried,  "Traitors,"  and  gone 
mad. 

Suddenly  came  the  news  that  the  Premier, 
Viviani,  had  resigned,  the  other  ministers  fol- 
lowed suit,  a  new  Ministry  of  the  best  of  all 
parties  was  being  formed.  Delcasse  came  back 
to  power  and  Ribot;  Millerand  as  Minister  of 
War,  and  two  Socialists,  one  of  them  de  Guesde. 
Clearly  the  authorities  must  be  scared.  The 
new  rulers  brought  out  a  new  proclamation : — 
they  wished  to  unite  all  French  parties  in  face 
of  the  enemy ;  this  was  to  be  a  fight  to  a  finish. 
Everyone  felt  that  the  idea  was  a  good  one,  but 
thought  that  Clemenceau  should  have  been  in 
the  Ministry.  Viviani  had  offered  him  a  post, 
it  appeared,  but  not  sufficient  influence,  per- 
haps, and  his  vigorous  criticism  went  on  day 
after  day. 

Then  came  a  strange  and  characteristic  story. 
Long  before  this  all  the  motor  cars  of  rich  peo- 
ple had  been  commandeered  for  the  Army. 
Now  the  story  went  about  that  Messimy,  the 
late  Minister  of  War,  had  lent  out  motor-cars 
to  his  friends  and  that  pretty  girls,  actresses 
and  music-hall  celebrities  had  been  figuring 
about  in  grand  cars  commandeered'for  the  serv- 
ice of  the  State.  The  Parisians  laughed.  The 
story  was  characteristically  French  and  held 
more  than  a  kernel  of  truth.  The  most  practi- 
cal of  the  commandeered  cars  were  put  to  use, 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      123 

but  all  could  not  be  used  and  a  few  were  doubt- 
less misused  in  the  manner  rumored. 

The  fact  held  a  prodigous  moral  for  me  for  I 
knew  how  the  Germans  had  provided  them- 
selves years  before  with  the  sort  of  motor-car 
which  they  considered  most  useful.  In  1909,  I 
think  it  was,  motor-cabs  were  about  to  be 
placed  for  hire  on  the  streets  in  Berlin  and  other 
German  cities.  There  was  some  talk  about  the 
matter  in  motoring  circles  at  the  time.  The 
German  police,  it  appeared,  had  instituted  very 
precise  regulations:  in  order  to  be  licensed  to 
ply  for  hire  the  motor-cab  had  to  fulfil  certain 
conditions :  it  had  to  be  able  to  turn  almost  in 
its  own  length ;  the  axles  had  to  be  of  a  certain 
strength;  the  steering  very  simple;  the  con- 
sumption of  essence  very  small.  Motorists 
were  astonished  at  some  of  the  conditions. 
The  thought  never  entered  our  heads  that  these 
conditions  were  instituted  by  the  German  Gen- 
eral Staff  in  order  to  have  at  any  given  moment 
an  ample  supply  of  cars  suitable  for  military  re- 
quirements. At  the  outbreak  of  the  war  the 
German  Staff  commandeered  all  these  motor- 
cabs  and  of  some  80,000  found  50,000  in  good 
condition.  These  they  used  in  Belgium  for  the 
quicker  transportation  of  men,  food  and  muni- 
tions of  war.  No  wonder  the  German  forces 
are  always  more  mobile  than  the  French  or 
English  or  Russian  forces.  Success  in  war  is 
now  as  in  business,  a  question  of  foresight  and 
organization. 


124     ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

Towards  the  end  of  the  month,  the  first  Ger- 
man airplane  sailed  over  Paris  and  dropped 
two  bombs.  It  did  nothing  but  wound  a  wo- 
man ;  later  ones  killed  women  and  children ;  the 
brutality  called  out  the  finest  French  spirit. 
The  practice  seemed  to  me  a  mistake  in  judg- 
ment even  from  the  German  point  of  view. 
Why  kill  non-combatants  needlessly?  But  the 
French  accepted  it  perfectly.  "It  is  free  to  us 
to  do  them  the  same  injury,"  was  all  they  said. 

A  few  days  later,  I  saw  a  German  Taube 
coming  over  and  heard  the  dull  report  of  a 
bomb.  A  crowd  of  men  and  women  in  the 
streets  near  the  Gare  St.  Lazare  all  ran  towards 
the  airplane  out  of  sheer  excitement  to  see 
what  would  happen,  though  on  all  sides  was 
heard  the  crackling  of  rifles  and  apparently  of 
mitrailleuses  from  the  Eiffel  Tower  trying  to 
bring  down  the  German  bird.  These  bombs 
told  us  how  near  the  Germans  were  to  Paris, 
and  another  fact  enforced  the  lesson. 

Next  day  we  ran  into  an  immense  crowd  of 
people  near  St.  Sulplice. 

"Who  are  they,"  we  asked.  Country  people 
coming  into  Paris  with  their  household  goods 
in  their  hands,  fleeing  before  the  Germans. 
That  evening  there  were  thousands  more  of 
them.  The  various  mairies  we  learned  were 
snowed  under.  But  the  authorities  were  en- 
couraged by  the  press  and  people  to  pass  these 
poor  houseless  folk  on  towards  the  South ;  pas 
de  bouches  inutiles  (no  useless  mouths)  was 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      125 

the  order  of  the  day.  Belated  foreigners  made 
ready  to  leave  Paris. 

Then  came  the  news  that  the  Germans  had 
cut  the  line  from  Paris  to  Boulogne ;  they  were 
in  Amiens;  no  more  trains  that  way.  Then 
the  line  from  Paris  to  Dieppe  was  threatened. 
Soldiers  were  parked  in  the  Avenue  du  Bois; 
barricades  thrown  up  on  the  outer  boulevards ; 
all  lights  even  street  lamps  put  out  at  night.  I 
went  to  see  Monsieur  Deschanel,  President  of 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies  and  Academician  as 
well,  and  had  an  hour's  talk  with  him  and 
learned  the  true  state  of  affairs. 

Monsieur  Deschanel  received  me  in  his  Pres- 
ident's house  just  behind  the  War  Office,  a 
charming  dwelling  set  back  with  a  great  square 
in  front  and  a  homely  avenue  of  trees,  an  abode 
one  would  have  said  of  ancient  peace.  M.  Des- 
chanel is  of  middle  height,  an  alert  man  of  about 
forty-five,  with  a  fine  head,  bright  eyes,  keen 
expression — a  handsome  man  and  a  courteous. 
He  reminded  me  at  the  beginning  that  for 
twenty  years  past  he  had  labored  constantly  to 
form  the  Triple  Entente.  I  knew  his  writings 
and  admitted  his  foresight.  Though  we  have 
got  war,  he  argued,  and  it  seems  to  be  going 
against  us,  we  have  it  under  the  most  favora- 
ble conditions  possible.  Germany  and  Austria 
alone  against  us,  and  with  us  England  and  Rus- 
sia, Belgium  too,  and  the  good  will  of  Italy  and 
indeed  of  all  civilized  peoples.  It  is  those 
dreadful  Krupp  guns  that  have  made  the  issue 


126      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

doubtful  for  the  moment;  but  "only  for  the 
moment,"  he  was  careful  to  add. 

"Tell  me  about  them,"  I  entreated. 

"We  found  out  about  them,"  he  said,  "at  Na- 
mur.  Liege  defended  itself  successfully  at  first 
against  the  German  attack,  but  as  soon  as  the 
Germans  brought  up  their  heavy  guns,  the  po- 
sition was  carried.  They  are  tremendous 
weapons.  One  instance.  Two  forts  at  Namur 
commanded  the  railway.  We  all  felt  sure  that 
it  would  take  the  Germans  a  month  to  reduce 
them  and  capture  Namur.  That  was  the  opin- 
ion of  our  experts.  But  they  got  them  in  one 
afternoon.  The  fire  of  the  great  Krupp  guns 
was  terrific.  The  big  shells  went  five  or  six 
yards  into  the  ground  and  blew  the  forts  to 
atoms;  we  have  nothing  round  Paris  to  stop 
them. 

Altogether,  M.  Deschanel  was  depressing. 
He  saw,  however,  the  brighter  side  as  well. 

"The  decisive  factors  are  all  in  our  favor," 
he  argued.  "As  we  retreat  the  German  line  of 
communication  gets  longer;  their  power 
shrinks,  while  ours  grows.  The  English  are 
doing  all  they  can;  the  Russians,  too;  more 
than  we  had  even  hoped.  They  are  more  suc- 
cessful than  we  dreamed  they  would  be  so  soon. 
We  must  win  finally,  but  we  shall  have  to 
abandon  Paris." 

"Abandon  Paris,"  I  cried;  "what  do  you 
mean?" 

"The  Government  must  go  to  Bordeaux.    It 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      127 

is  going  to-morrow  or  the  next  day.  All  ar- 
rangements have  been  made." 

"But  surely,"  I  said,  "Paris  will  be  able  to 
defend  itself  for  some  weeks  or  days  ?" 

"I'm  afraid  not,"  he  replied.  "Those  Krupp 
guns  have  made  all  forts  worthless.  The  Ger- 
mans will  be  in  Paris  in  a  day  or  so.  Paris  is 
lost.  Who  would  have  thought  it?  Who  could 
have  imagined  it?"  And  he  moved  about  the 
room  restlessly. 

"By  going  to  Bordeaux,  we  want  to  tell  our 
people  that  we  mean  to  fight  to  the  last:  the 
taking  of  Paris  even  shall  be  only  an  incident 
in  the  struggle." 

"That  is  the  proper  spirit,"  I  could  not  help 
saying;  "the  spirit  that  the  French  troops 
showed  at  Malplaquet,  the  determination  never 
to  be  beaten." 

That  same  afternoon  I  saw  regiment  after 
regiment  of  French  soldiers  marching  down  the 
Champs  Elysees.  Everywhere  sturdy  figures 
and  cheerful  faces;  they  made  even  the  crowd 
smile  with  their  merry  greetings,  and  in  mind 
one  could  not  help  contrasting  them  with  that 
army  of  1814  which  Napoleon  used  to  such  pur- 
pose against  the  invaders.  In  1814  the  French 
army  was  made  up  almost  exclusively  of  boys 
from  fifteen  to  eighteen  and  of  men  from  fifty- 
five  to  seventy.  A  noticeable  fact,  too — all 
these  conscript  lads  were  already  married. 
France  had  given  so  many  hundreds  of  thous- 
ands of  her  best  to  Napoleon  that  she  had  only 


128      ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

boys  and  old  men  left :  but  the  dauntless  French 
spirit  was  there  and  its  habit  of  blague:  its 
power  of  laughing  at  itself  held  in  1814  as  in 
1 914.  Those  conscript  boys  were  called  "Marie 
Louises"  in  contemptuous  reference  to  the 
Austrian  queen.  Yet  at  Montereau  a  month 
later  they  swept  through  the  German  cavalry, 
and  won  victory  after  victory  over  all  their 
foes.  Would  these  stalwart  cheery  fellows  do 
as  well?  "They  have  no  Napoleon,"  I  thought, 
"but  it  is  a  warlike  race." 

Next  morning  at  six  o'clock  amid  a  host  of 
fugitive  French  people  fleeing  for  safety  to 
England,  I  saw  my  v/omen  folk  off  by  the  last 
train  that  went  through  to  Dieppe.  With 
passes  they  could  not  get  seats  even,  but  had 
to  stand  in  crowded  third  class  carriages ;  but 
still  they  got  away,  though  they  were  not  al- 
lowed to  take  their  trunks,  but  only  hand  lug- 
gage. 

I  was  rejoiced  to  see  them  off  in  safety.  The 
train,  I  learned,  would  take  the  whole  day  to 
get  to  the  coast ;  they  might  be  inconvenienced 
and  bored;  but  they  would  reach  peace  and 
comfort  on  the  morrow. 

I  intended  to  stay  and  see  the  Germans  en- 
ter Paris :  that  would  be  an  historic  event  of 
fateful  significance.  It  occurred  to  me  that  it 
might  decide  the  issue  of  the  war  and  practi- 
cally end  it.  For  the  Germans  could  then  bar- 
gain with  the  French  almost  irresistibly: 
"We'll  give  you  back  Paris  and  the  north  of 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      129 

France,"  they  might  say,  "even  the  French- 
speaking  communes  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  if 
you'll  make  a  durable  peace."  How  could  the 
French  resist  the  bait?  Their  authorities  said 
they  would,  but  I  thought  it  too  much  to  ex- 
pect of  human  nature. 

The  very  next  day,  I  think,  came  the  news 
that  the  Allies  had  agreed  not  to  make  peace 
separately:  England  beginning  to  realize  her 
danger. 

I  wanted  to  get  to  the  front  to  see  some  of 
the  actual  fighting ;  but  it  was  more  advisable, 
I  decided,  for  the  moment  to  stay  in  Paris  and 
watch  events. 

The  next  day  I  ran  out  to  Chantilly  in  a  mo- 
tor-car and  had  numberless  interesting  exper- 
iences. The  road  was  crowded  with  country 
people  fleeing  as  from  a  fire,  laden  down  with 
their  household  belongings;  all  sorts  of  vehi- 
cles, too,  crowded  the  pave,  from  children's 
go-carts  piled  high  with  odds  and  ends  to  hay- 
wagons  packed  as  for  emigration.  Here  and 
there  in  the  crowd  knots  of  English  and  French 
soldiers  who  had  got  separated  from  their  regi- 
ments ;  many  of  the  English  in  especial,  fagged 
out  by  rapid  marching  and  not  enough  rest — 
one  and  all  complaining  of  want  of  sleep — no 
time  to  sleep. 

Frenchmen  of  the  middle-class  related  how 
they  had  buried  their  silver  and  abandoned 
their  houses.  One  told  us  of  receiving  the  even- 
ing before  a  band  of  French  soldiers  among 


130      ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

whom  were  a  couple  of  English  Tommies ;  none 
of  them  had  washed  for  a  week,  or  had  had  any 
sleep.  Ke  took  them  into  his  barn  and  shook 
down  hay  for  them.  Before  he  had  finished 
they  were  all  asleep  and  this  morning  they 
washed.  "You  should  have  seen  the  dirt — 
poor  devils — war  is  hell!" 

Everyone  I  asked  had  the  same  answer. 
"The  Germans  outnumbered  us,  outflanked  us ; 
we  had  to  get  back  as  hard  as  we  could." 
What  would  be  the  next  move? 

I  felt  certain  Paris  would  be  taken;  but  I 
couldn't  understand  the  Germans  giving  the 
beaten  enemy  even  one  day  to  rest  and  recup- 
erate. But  all  that  day  Von  Kluck  appeared 
to  be  resting  on  his  laurels.  Next  morning  in 
Paris  I  heard  that  Von  Kluck  was  sweeping 
round  to  the  South  and  East.  What  on  earth 
for?  Everyone,  who  knew  anything,  was 
amazed.  Some  spoke  of  Paris  being  too  strong 
to  take,  too  big  to  occupy.  Then  we  heard  all 
sorts  of  wild  explanations,  none  of  which  would 
have  satisfied  a  child. 

Next  day  or  the  day  after,  we  heard  that 
Von  Kluck  with  his  staff  was  at  Sezanne  many 
miles  to  the  East  and  South  of  Paris.  His 
whole  army  of  over  250,000  men  had  swept 
around  Paris,  leaving  the  city  untouched,  un- 
masked, unwatched!    What  did  it  all  mean? 

Again  I  got  out  in  a  friend's  motor-car  and 
ran  down  towards  Coulommiers  where  we  were 
headed  off  by  French  troops  and  sent  back. 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      131 

One  thing  was  certain :  Paris  was  not  going  to 
be  taken.  The  Germans  had  given  up  the 
greatest  prize  in  the  war!  What  was  the  ex- 
planation? I  had  to  wait  weeks  before  I  heard 
the  true  story,  which  I  shall  tell  later. 

The  moral  of  events,  so  far,  seems  clear.  The 
German  organization  for  war  was  enormously 
superior  to  the  French  as  everyone  should  have 
guessed  it  would  be.  Anyone  who  knows  the 
French  post  office,  knows  how  inferior  it  is  in 
organization  to  the  German  post  office. 

The  French  organization  of  industry  is  in- 
ferior even  to  the  English.  The  French  people 
are  greater  individualists,  less  disciplined  than 
the  English  people,  therefore,  the  State  organi- 
zations are  not  so  efficient. 

M.  Barres,  the  Deputy  and  Academician, 
writing  in  the  "Echo  de  Paris"  the  other  day, 
admitted  that  their  weakness  in  organization 
was  the  French  "sin  against  the  Spirit"  which 
would  have  to  be  altered  in  the  future. 

And  the  English  post  office  is  not  so  efficient 
as  the  German  post  office,  is  indeed  a  mere  copy 
of  the  German  as  organized  by  Herr  Stepan. 
Accordingly,  German  mobilization  was  far 
more  efficient  than  French  mobilization;  the 
French,  too,  were  hypnotized  by  the  idea  of 
Alsace-Lorraine  and  the  war  of  '70,  and  sent 
all  their  best  troops  to  that  frontier.  They  did 
not  foresee  the  attack  through  Belgium,  and 
even  when  Liege  was  taken  they  were  slow  to 
wheel  about  and  face  the  real  invasion  by  Char- 


132      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

leroi  and  Maubeuge  and  Longwy.  They  were 
manifestly  not  prepared  to  resist  properly  the 
attack  through  Belgium.  They  had  been  out- 
manoeuvered. 

Never  before  has  such  a  feat  of  arms  been 
accomplished.  In  a  month  the  Germans  tossed 
the  Belgians  aside,  drove  back  the  English 
and  French,  and  with  unparalleled  speed  rushed 
right  to  the  gates  of  Paris !  Why  they  did  not 
take  Paris  remains  to  be  explained.  One  thing 
seems  pretty  sure:  had  the  Russians  not  acted 
with  at  least  equal  promptitude,  it  seems  prob- 
able that  the  tidal  wave  of  German  invasion 
would  have  swept  over  Paris  and  taken  all  the 
strong  places  on  the  Eastern  frontier  as  well. 
But  how  came  the  Russians  to  be  so  ready? 
Their  mobilization  must  have  begun  months 
before  we  heard  of  it. 

CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Censorship  and  Its  Effects 

For  the  first  time  in  history  hostile  forces 
have  been  opposed  over  a  battle  front  of  some 
three  hundred  miles  and  neither  side  has  gained 
any  definite  advantage  in  seven  months  of  con- 
tinual fighting.  There  must  be  some  explana- 
tion of  this  extraordinary  occurrence. 

It  is  true  that  outflanking  is  impossible,  for 
one  end  of  the  far  flung  line  rests  on  Switzer- 
land, a  neutral  country,  and  the  other  on  the 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      133 

sea.  It  is  the  fact,  too,  that  the  numbers  of 
men  engaged  on  each  side  are  greater  than  ever 
before ;  but  such  a  deadlock  has  never  presented 
itself  in  the  past  even  on  a  small  scale  and  it 
is  therefore  certain  that  some  new  factor  or 
factors  must  have  entered  into  the  usual  war 
problem  and  altered  its  very  nature. 

The  battle  of  Waterloo,  like  that  of  Grave- 
lotte,  lasted  a  day;  some  encounters  in  the 
Russo-Japanese  war  were  not  decided  for  sev- 
eral days ;  but  it  is  unheard  of  to  get  no  result 
in  seven  months'  struggling. 

What  is  the  explanation  of  the  deadlock? 

The  only  new  factors  so  far  as  I  can  see  are 
the  action  of  airplanes  and  the  fact  that  the 
war  news  now  is  being  censored. 

The  first  of  these,  the  action  of  air-planes, 
may  be  summarily  dismissed.  In  ordinary 
weather  these  aerial  scouts  inform  Generals  of 
any  new  massing  of  troops  or  any  concentra- 
tion of  force  on  a  large  scale,  and  so  tend  to 
simplify  strategy  and  tactics.  But  the  simpli- 
fication of  war  must  tend  rather  to  increase 
than  diminish  boldness  in  attack.  It  is  the  un- 
known that  paralyzes  action,  and  so  the  knowl- 
edge brought  by  air-planes  would  be  apt  to  ha:i- 
ten  rather  than  retard  the  final  issue. 

At  first  blush  the  censorship  would  seem  to 
have  still  less  than  air-planes  to  do  with  the 
fighting ;  how  can  the  censor  be  made  responsi- 
ble for  the  perpetual  stalemate  of  drawn  bat- 
tles? 


134     ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

First  let  us  recall  how  the  censor  came  into 
being  and  what  his  true  function  is.  It  hap- 
pened, I  believe,  once  in  the  Franco-German 
war  of  1870  that  news  had  been  telegraphed  by 
a  correspondent  with  the  German  army  to  Lon- 
don and  from  there  rewired  to  Paris  and  the 
front  in  time  to  convey  valuable  information  to 
the  French  commander  in  the  field.  Clearly 
such  an  occurrence  is  very  exceptional  and 
could  easily  be  guarded  against  and  rendered 
impossible. 

In  the  South  African  war,  where  no  similar 
occurrences  were  to  be  feared,  the  censorship 
was  made  rigorous  and  the  war  correspondent 
practically  muzzled  for  the  first  time.  The  co- 
lonial correspondents  complained  bitterly  of 
the  want  of  reason  in  the  restrictions  put  upon 
them ;  some  of  the  London  papers  followed  suit. 
The  worst  blunders  were  ascribed  to  the  fact 
that  the  censor  was  Lord  Stanley,  a  man  of 
quick  temper  and  an  overweening  sense  of  his 
own  importance;  and  it  was  hoped  that  a  new 
censor  would  be  more  reasonable.  But  after 
Lord  Kitchener  had  taken  the  place  of  Lord 
Roberts  and  the  Boer  army  had  been  dispersed, 
when  there  was  no  longer  any  excuse  whatever 
for  censoring  the  news,  every  message  was  cen- 
sored more  rigorously  than  ever. 

What  was  the  reason  of  this  new  departure? 
The  newspapers  grumbled ;  the  correspondents 
threw  up  their  places  and  returned  home  in  in- 
dignation.   Lord  Kitchener,  however,  stuck  to 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      135 

his  methods;  and  it  seems  to  me  that  there  is 
only  one  possible  explanation  of  his  resolve; 
he  didn't  intend  to  have  his  Paardebergs  de- 
scribed or  his  policy  of  "block  houses"  and 
"concentration  camps"  freely  criticised,  and 
from  his  point  of  view  he  was  justified. 

To  the  muzzling  of  the  British  press  must  be 
ascribed  the  fact  that  he  returned  from  the  war 
with  reputation  hardly  diminished,  though  he 
had  been  beaten  to  a  standstill  in  the  only  bat- 
tle he  had  fought,  and  beaten  in  spite  of  an 
overwhelming  superiority  in  numbers.  Be- 
sides, he  had  utterly  failed  with  400,000  men  at 
his  command  to  round  up  or  drive  out  the  hand- 
ful of  Boers,  with  amateur  commanders,  who 
kept  the  field  against  him  for  over  a  year. 

The  full  significance  of  this  experience  will 
be  seen  later.  It  is  enough  now  to  state  that 
the  English  were  the  first  people  who,  without 
any  reason  whatever,  established  a  censorship 
so  complete  that  only  such  news  was  allowed 
to  be  published  as  suited  the  commander  in 
chief  at  the  front. 

The  dislike  of  free  speech  is  one  of  the  most 
curious  and  most  characteristic  facts  in  later 
English  history;  it  is  found  all  through  their 
home  policy.  By  a  series  of  the  most  astonish- 
ing libel  laws  ever  framed  they  have  muzzled 
their  whole  press  and  have  driven  truth  out  of 
public  life.  They  have  choked  all  valuable  crit- 
icism to  silence ;  their  newspapers  can  do  noth- 
ing but  praise.    There  is  now  no  such  thing  as 


136      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

free  speech  possible  in  Great  Britain.  The 
American  war-correspondent,  Mr.  Emerson, 
recently  informed  me  that  of  87  cablegrams 
sent  by  him  from  Berlin  in  the  early  months  of 
the  war,  to  New  York  papers,  83  were  sup- 
pressed altogether  by  the  English  censor,  and 
of  the  four  allowed  to  go  through,  one  was  so 
altered  that  the  meaning  of  it  was  entirely 
changed.  Manifestly,  the  English  regard  the 
truth  as  likely  to  injure  even  Americans.  The 
rigorous  censoring  of  war  correspondence  has 
come  from  England  and  is  a  peculiarly  English 
trait. 

In  the  war  waged  between  Turkey  and 
Greece  war  correspondents  were  reinstated  to 
a  certain  extent  and  they  did  excellent  service 
in  restraining  Turkish  vindictiveness  and  bet- 
ter work  still  when  they  exposed  the  atrocities 
practised  by  the  Japanese  in  their  war  with 
China. 

Probably  for  this  reason  in  the  Russo-Japan- 
ese war  the  Japanese  took  a  leaf  out  of  the 
English  book  and  turned  all  the  war  corre- 
spondents into  humble  eulogists  of  the  general 
officers  and  commanders  in  the  field.  Criticism 
ceased,  fair  statement  was  taboo,  hymns  of 
praise  and  paeans  of  eulogy  were  alone  granted 
the  privilege  of  transmission.  We  learned  that 
the  Japs  were  braver  than  any  Europeans,  more 
learned  than  Germans,  more  considerate  than 
Sisters  of  Mercy.    In  fact,  if  it  had  not  been  for 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      137 

the  Japanese  themselves  their  soldiers  might 
have  been  thought  worthy  of  beatification. 

As  it  is  they  have  told  us  with  what  unholy 
glee  they  torpedoed  unsuspecting  Russian  war- 
ships in  the  harbor  of  Port  Arthur  before  it 
was  possible  for  their  foes  to  have  heard  of  the 
declaration  of  war  and  by  this  exultant  treach- 
ery, they  confirmed  the  opinion  formed  of  them 
when  in  the  first  siege  of  Port  Arthur  they 
were  proved  to  have  ripped  open  pregnant  wo- 
men and  skewered  babies  on  their  bayonets. 
It  was  the  European  war  correspondents,  and 
notably  the  English,  who  first  exposed  and  so 
put  an  end  to  such  devilish  cruelties. 

At  present,  thanks  to  the  English  hatred  of 
citicism,  humanity  has  no  such  efficient  pro- 
tection. It  is  one  of  the  strange  anomalies 
of  our  life  that  the  individual  Englishman  may 
be  trusted  to  tell  the  truth  more  exactly  than 
most  other  men  if  he  is  allowed  to,  whereas  his 
Government  hates  truth  more  than  any  other 
Government  and  has  by  law  turned  the  speak- 
ing of  truth  into  a  crime.  This  is  one  of  the 
consequences  of  government  by  oligarchy  in 
these  democratic  days. 

The  dislike  of  criticism  and  the  hatred  of 
truth  embodied  in  the  modern  censorship  of 
war  correspondents  have  the  most  serious  re- 
sults on  the  efficiency  of  armies  in  the  field. 
Let  me  now  try  to  prove  this. 

First  of  all,  war  is  not  a  difficult  or  profound 


138      ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

science  and  in  times  of  peace  the  vast  majority 
of  Generals  are  men  of  the  most  mediocre  abil- 
ity. Both  these  propositions  must  be  proved 
and  must  be  regarded  as  axioms  before  the  ef- 
fect of  modern  censorship  can  be  understood. 

All  other  professions  and  trades  are  better 
officered  than  the  fighting  services.  Men  often 
poke  fun  at  the  pret.nsions  of  surgeons ;  but  no 
one  without  long  study  would  dream  of  trying 
to  cut  out  stone  in  the  bladder  or  cataract  in 
the  eye,  for  example.  Even  a  man  of  the  high- 
est and  most  extraordinary  genius  would  ad- 
mit that  an  ordinary  surgeon  would  beat  him 
at  such  a  feat.  But  again  and  again  civilians 
have  gone  into  the  field,  taken  over  the  com- 
mand of  armies  and  beaten  experienced  and 
war-worn  Generals  at  their  own  game. 

Cromwell  had  never  been  trained  to  arms; 
yet  he  beat  Gen.  Leslie  and  Prince  Rupert,  who 
had  European  reputations;  Clive  and  Charles 
XII  had  scarcely  seen  a  blow  struck  in  anger, 
yet  they  proved  themselves  commanders  of  the 
first  class,  as  did  Frederick  the  Great  after  a 
single  battle.  In  no  other  profession  could  an 
unlearned  outsider  beat  the  masters  of  the 
craft. 

This  is  the  most  astounding  fact  in  the  his- 
tory of  all  war.  Five  hundred  years  ago  Swiss 
levies  led  by  untrained  civilians  beat  the  best 
troops  in  Europe  commanded  by  renowned 
Generals;  in  our  own  times  De  Wet,  Delarey 
and  Botha  with  untrained  Boer  farmers  took 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      139 

the  field  against  trained  British  armies  and  beat 
them  again  and  again  at  odds  of  three  to  one ; 
the  farmers  at  New  Orleans  in  18 14  found  no 
difficulty  in  defeating  veteran  English  soldiers 
who  had  won  fame  by  driving  Napoleon's  arm- 
ies out  of  the  Peninsula. 

These  facts  can  only  be  understood  when  we 
realize  that  war,  as  Tolstoy  tried  to  show,  is 
not  a  science  at  all,  but  a  very  simple  business, 
and  that  most  Generals  are  utter  mediocrities, 
without  insight  or  initiative. 

How  does  a  man  become  a  General  in  times 
of  peace?  By  obeying  rules  unhesitatingly, 
whether  good  or  bad,  and  by  an  amiable  "sub- 
servience," shall  we  call  it,  or  servility?  to  his 
superiors  in  rank. 

But  these  are  the  attributes  of  mediocrity. 
In  any  ordinary  business  these  lickspittling 
qualities  help  a  man  on,  but  he  is  always  being 
judged  by  results  as  well.  The  head  of  a  de- 
partment store  knows  by  the  results  whether 
his  assistant  is  a  good  salesman  and  organizer 
or  not,  but  the  Captain  or  Colonel  in  times  of 
peace  is  subjected  to  no  test  whatever. 

Another  point  to  be  borne  in  mind.  Genius 
is  notoriously  undisciplined  and  indocile.  The 
man  of  commanding  ability  in  any  walk  of  life 
always  revolts  and  breaks  out  a  new  way  for 
himself.  He  has  no  chance  with  the  mediocrity 
in  climbing  slowly  grade  by  grade  where  he 
cannot  prove  himself.  Genius  therefore  leaves 
the  army.    War  is  the  simplest  of  games,  and  in 


140      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

times  of  peace  and,  indeed,  in  spite  of  such  ex- 
perience as  is  afforded  by  short  wars  the  vast 
majority  of  Generals  are  almost  inevitably  men 
of  most  mediocre  ability. 

That  is  the  simple  reason  why  commanding 
officers  usually  detest  criticism  and  are  de- 
lighted to  guard  themselves  against  it  by  rig- 
orous censorship.  Now  consider  how  this  af- 
fects the  conduct  of  war.  Put  yourself  in  the 
place  of  the  mediocrity  who  has  become  com- 
mander-in-chief of  an  army  in  the  ordinary 
way. 

First  of  all  your  General  French  or  Joffre  is 
usually  far  past  his  best;  he  may  indeed  be  70, 
like  General  Pau;  he  is  almost  certain  to  be 
well  over  60,  like  General  Joffre  and  French; 
age-worn  and  cautious.  Besides,  being  a  me- 
diocrity he  wants  first  of  all  to  keep  his  job; 
he  is  conscious  at  bottom  of  his  own  weakness 
and  shortcomings  and  accordingly  he  risks 
nothing  and  adventures  as  little  as  possible. 
With  such  cautious  leaders  you  have  the  result 
now  before  you  in  France,  a  complete  dead- 
lock. 

But  rigorous  censorship  has  even  worse  ef- 
fects than  this.  There  is  nothing  mediocrity 
and  age  dislike  so  much  as  genius  and  bold  ini- 
tiative. The  pompous,  footling  old  General  se- 
lects his  most  mediocre  assistants  for  praise. 
He  thus  protects  his  own  weakness  from  dis- 
covery by  making  his  successors  even  feebler 
than  himself.    And  so  you  have  French  prais- 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      141 

ing  Smith-Dorrien  and  Joffre  lauding  Pau — 
shallow  echoing  shallow. 

But  after  all  it  will  be  said  the  German  army 
is  suffering  from  the  same  disease.  They,  too, 
have  established  a  censor,  but  no  one  who 
compares  can  doubt  the  fact  that  the  German 
news  is  infinitely  fuller  and  fairer  than  English 
or  French  news.  The  German  papers  have 
published  detailed  accounts  of  German  defeats 
or  checks.  In  consequence  of  frank  criticism 
Generals  have  been  retired.  Even  the  great 
name  of  Von  Moltke  has  not  protected  him 
from  condemnation. 

The  Germans  have  allowed  even  American 
correspondents,  like  James  Bennett  and  Irvin 
Cobb,  to  go  everywhere  they  liked  in  "devas- 
tated Belgium"  and  tell  the  truth  as  they  saw 
it  unconstrained.  Consequently  we  have  Mr. 
Bennett  proving  that  Sir  A.  Conan  Doyle's  ac- 
count of  German  "atrocities"  and  German 
"murders"  are  mostly  foul  imaginings.  Mr. 
Bennett  has  seen  whatever  he  wanted  to  see 
without  let  or  hindrance,  and  he  shows  that  the 
stories  of  the  wrecking  of  Louvain,  for  exam- 
ple, are  wild  exaggerations ;  more  than  three- 
quarters  of  the  town  standing  to-day  uninjured. 

Think  of  the  ineptitude  which  made  the  Eng- 
lish censor,  F.  E.  Smith,  famous.  The  message 
came  from  a  correspondent  with  the  English 
force  early  in  August.    It  ran : 

"We  landed  at  (name  of  place  cen- 
sored) and  were  taken  seventy  miles  up  the 


142      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

River (name  of  river  censored)  to  — ■ 

(name  of  place  censored)." 

Evidently  F.  E.  Smith  knew  nothing  about 
the  Seine.  He  made  his  tenure  of  office  memo- 
rable by  blocking  out  the  names  of  the  towns 
on  picture  postcards. 

The  German  censor  is  not  so  ignorant  or 
so  anxious  to  avoid  the  truth.  Moreover,  the 
Germans  have  constant  criticism  from  above — 
the  Kaiser  is  worth  a  good  many  war  corre- 
spondents to  them,  and  so  is  the  Crown  Prince. 
The  princes,  too,  of  Bavaria  and  Saxony,  Baden 
and  Wurtemburg  are  not  mere  onlookers.  The 
criticism  of  Vv'ar  correspondents  is  not  so  nec- 
essary to  the  Germans  as  it  is  to  the  Allies; 
yet  one  finds  frank  criticism  of  German  Gen- 
erals in  German  papers  and  frank  exposure  of 
blunders  and  reverses  such  as  would  not  be 
tolerated  for  a  moment  in  any  English  or  even 
French  paper. 

From  the  beginning  the  German  leaders  have 
shown  some  initiative  and  attack.  They  have 
been  trained  in  the  school  of  Moltke ;  they  have 
inherited  his  spirit  and  precepts.  Besides,  in 
every  department  of  German  life,  even  in  the 
German  army,  there  is  a  desire  for  efficiency, 
a  longing  not  only  to  keep  your  job,  but  to  do 
it.  The  German  captains  have  proved  them- 
selves the  superiors  of  the  French  and  Eng- 
lish captains.  Now  having  won  more  than  they 
want  or  even  desire  to  keep,  it  is  the  cue  of  the 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      143 

German  Generals  to  stand  on  the  defensive  and 
let  the  Allies  break  themselves  in  attack. 

All  through  these  last  six  months  Joffre  and 
French  should  have  been  attacking  night  and 
day  resolutely ;  bad  weather  is  their  friend  and 
ally;  they  are  fighting  at  home;  behind  them 
millions  of  French  homes,  French  love,  French 
tendance.  Behind  the  Germans  a  hostile  peo- 
ple and  the  coldest  of  cold  comfort.  Still  the 
French  and  English  do  nothing;  they  are  as 
plainly  outgeneralled  nov7  as  they  were  at  the 
beginning  of  the  war.  Joffre  and  French  would 
long  ago  have  been  detected  and  exposed  and 
relieved  of  their  positions  if  they  had  been  sub- 
jected to  the  criticism  of  young  and  independ- 
ent war  correspondents. 

The  French  came  too  late  to  Charleroi,  the 
English  too  late  to  Mons,  and  both  with  ludi- 
crously insufficient  forces;  they  were  both 
whipped  immediately  and  beaten  back;  they 
couldn't  even  put  up  a  decent  fight  or  hold  the 
Germans  for  a  day  anywhere.  They  were 
driven  like  sheep  back  and  back  to  Paris. 

Then,  it  is  true,  came  a  German  check,  which 
hasn't  yet  been  explained,  or  rather,  which  has 
been  explained,  thanks  to  the  censorship,  alto- 
gether wrongly,  and  turned  to  praise  of  Joffre, 
French  and  company,  who  certainly  never  de- 
served the  honor.  If  you  doubt  that,  consider 
what  they  have  done  in  the  last  six  months. 
What  has  become  of  Joffre-French's  celebrated 


144      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

offensive  movement  which  was  to  take  place 
early  in  December? 

Now  Kitchener  talks  of  the  war  as  about  to 
begin  in  May?  That  is,  he  hopes  that  in  May 
the  Russians  will  take  the  offensive  in  over- 
whelming numbers.  But  he  is  doomed  to  dis- 
appointment in  May  as  in  December. 

The  first  Russian  armies  are  far  the  best,  the 
hordes  that  can  be  brought  up  next  May  will 
be  incredibly  stupid  and  only  half  trained, 
whereas  the  Germans  will  maintain  their  high 
standard  of  efficiency.  The  Germans  will  prob- 
ably beat  the  Russians  next  summer  more  eas- 
ily than  they  have  beaten  them  hitherto;  they 
will  certainly  hold  them  with  a  carefully 
chosen  line  of  intrenchments,  as  they  now  hold 
the  French  and  English. 

What  then  is  to  be  done?  The  best  hope  for 
the  Allies  is  to  get  rid  at  once  of  the  censor- 
ship which  is  needed  to  protect  English  com- 
mercial "graft"  and  the  English  oligarchy  who 
only  want  to  live  without  work  on  other  men's 
labors. 

With  the  advent  of  real  war  correspondents 
a  breath  of  fresh  air  would  come  into  the  whole 
conduct  of  the  war. 

Genius  welcomes  criticism;  the  more  the 
merrier,  the  higher  the  better.  "Come  look 
what  I'm  doing,"  it  cries  fearlessly,  knowing 
that  truth  must  help  it  and  that  in  an  open 
struggle  between  truth  and  falsehood,  truth  has 
nothing  to  fear. 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      145 

Efficiency  longs  for  criticism ;  the  more  com- 
petent the  better;  it  is  only  inefficiency  that 
dreads  and  avoids  it;  dishonesty  that  seeks  to 
stifle  it. 

The  English,  as  is  their  modern  wont,  are 
playing  ostrich;  with  their  heads  in  the  bush 
they  hope  everything  from  time  and  the  chap- 
ter of  accidents.  Meanwhile  their  much  be- 
praised  organizer,  Lord  Kitchener,  has  come  to 
grief  as  I  predicted  he  would.  In  spite  of  their 
;vealth  the  English  are  so  scantily  supplied  with 
munitions  of  war  that  "The  Times"  talks  of  the 
"scandal,"  and  attributes  the  shortage  to  the 
"muddling"  and  want  of  "ordinary  foresight"  in 
the  "professional  soldiers"  in  charge  of  the  war- 
office.  However,  as  the  war  is  not  being  waged 
in  England,  they  can  regard  the  sufferings  of 
the  French  and  Belgians  with  that  comparative 
equanimity  which  La  Rochefoucauld  describes. 

But  France  should  tear  off  the  blinkers ;  war 
is  no  game  of  blind  man's  buff ;  one-twelfth  of 
their  country  is  in  the  hands  of  the  invaders, 
and  a  very  rich  twelfth.  Already  it  is  calcu- 
lated that  the  devastation  of  these  northern 
departments  has  cost  France  fifty  milliards  of 
francs,  or  ten  times  as  much  as  the  war  indem- 
nity levied  by  the  Germans  in  1871.  Ten  bil- 
lions of  dollars  they  have  already  had  to  pay 
for  their  want  of  efficient  organization  and  their 
credulous  trust  in  the  promised  help  of  England 
and  the  silly  censorship.  If  they  follow  the  evil 
example  of  England  and  keep  out  the  frank 


146      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

criticism  of  war  correspondents  their  weak 
generals  may  yet  cost  them  Paris,  and  perhaps 
even  more. 

How  long  will  this  brave  and  quick-witted 
people  trust  to  darkness  and  blind  guides  when 
their  one  hope  is  in  their  quick,  clear  vision  of 
the  actual.  Let  them  leave  England  to  official 
lies,  and  the  official  belief  "we  shall  muddle 
through  as  usual  somehow  or  other";  they 
must  face  the  light  and  truth ;  their  one  chance, 
I  will  not  say  of  victory,  but  of  freeing  French 
soil  from  the  invader,  is  to  know  the  facts  and 
face  the  facts  fairly,  relying  on  themselves 
alone. 

Why  should  the  French  democracy  imitate 
the  corrupt  methods  by  which  the  English  and 
Russian  oligarchies  maintain  themselves  as 
perpetual  pensioners  of  the  State,  parasites  on 
the  body  politic? 

I  am  delighted  to  see  that  Clemenceau,  one 
of  the  ablest  heads  in  France,  is  now  leading 
the  newspaper  revolt  against  the  idiotic  cen- 
sorship so  beloved  by  the  Generals.  Clemen- 
ceau is  beginning  to  realize  that  Joffre,  French 
and  company  are  not  likely  to  do  much  if  left 
to  their  own  devices.  But  it  will  be  very  diffi- 
cult, indeed,  for  the  French  to  win  truth  to  their 
side  and  use  it  while  their  allies,  the  English, 
are  determined  to  cover  all  their  sins  of  omis- 
sion and  commission  with  silence. 

The  reign  of  the  mediocrities  has  been  estab- 
lished, and  as  there  are  a  thousand  mediocri- 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      147 

ties  for  every  man  of  genius  or  lover  of  effi- 
ciency, the  reign  of  stupidity  is  likely  to  con- 
tinue. 

Poor  Clemenceau  has  already  found  out  how 
strong  it  is:  he  is  a  patriot  to  the  backbone, 
who  loves  France  with  all  his  heart  and  mind 
and  soul;  but  alas!  he  is  a  man  of  real  talent 
and  unselfishness ;  he  would  not  accept  a  post 
in  the  French  Ministry  though  it  was  pressed 
upon  him  and  accordingly  the  Vivianis  and 
Millerands  suppressed  his  paper  "L'Homme 
Libre"  (The  Freeman)  in  the  second  month  of 
the  war  because  they  couldn't  stand  frank  crit- 
icism. It  is  true  Clemenceau  immediately 
brought  out  "L'Homme  Enchaine"  (The  Muz- 
zled Man)  and  went  on  boldly ;  but  England  is 
behind  the  Vivianis  and  the  Frenches  and  the 
Joffres  and  England  is  resolved  that  no  breath 
of  truth  shall  dissipate  the  heavy  mists  that 
now  shroud  the  battle  line  from  view. 

CHAPTER  IX 

Who  Will  Win  in  the  War? 
Why  Von  Kluck  Did  Not  Take  Paris. 

Nearly  all  Americans  are  prepossessed  in  fa- 
vor of  the  Allies;  but  in  spite  of  this,  in  the 
back  of  their  minds,  so  to  speak,  there  is  a  cer- 
tain fairness  and  a  desire  to  know  the  truth. 

On  certain  matters  they  are  already  begin- 
ning to  be  at  sharp  variance  with  the  English. 


148      ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

Thanks  to  American  correspondents  who  have 
been  allowed  by  the  Germans  comjlete  free- 
dom to  see  and  state  the  facts ;  correspondents 
of  ability  and  character  like  James  Bennett  and 
Irvin  Cobb,  Americans  no  longer  believe  in  the 
baser  stories  of  German  atrocities  and  German 
vandalism.  Mr.  Bennett  in  particular  does  not 
hesitate  to  characterize  the  wild  imaginings  of 
Conan  Doyle  as  "slanderous  inventions,"  false- 
hoods bred  of  credulity. 

When  we  all  believe  with  Messrs.  Bennett, 
Thompson,  McCutcheon  and  Cobb  that  the 
Germans  have  waged  war  like  civilized  human 
beings,  that  their  soldiers  have  been  "severe 
but  not  ruthless"  in  Belgium  even  when  dealing 
with  francs-tireurs,  and  have  shown  the  ordi- 
nary inhabitants  almost  invariably  kindness 
and  courtesy  "and  have  taken  all  care  not  to  de- 
stroy cathedrals  or  works  of  art,"  we  are  com- 
ing near  the  frame  of  mind  which  will  allow  us 
to  see  facts  fairly  and  to  weigh  scrupulously 
the  various  factors  which  make  for  failure  and 
success  in  this  war.  Up  to  the  present  Ameri- 
cans have  believed  that  the  Germans  "wiped 
out"  Louvain  and  maliciously  or  callously  de- 
stroyed the  Cathedral  of  Rheims.  When  they 
understand  that  they  have  been  misled  in  these 
matters  they  will  be  more  ready  to  reconsider 
their  belief  that  the  issue  of  the  war  is  certain 
and  that  "the  Allies  must  win."  For  belief 
comes  from  the  heart  rather  than  from  the 
head;  our  feelings  of  sympathy  and  repulsion 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      149 

color  our  thoughts  and  lend  a  bias  to  what 
should  be  purely  intellectual  deductions. 

Roughly  speaking,  Americans  have  decided 
that  the  Allies  must  win  because  they  outnum- 
ber the  Germans  and  Austrians  by  three  to  one 
and  because  their  material  resources  are 
greater  in  much  the  same  ratio.  The  Germans, 
they  say,  gained  an  advantage  in  the  beginning 
by  virtue  of  superior  organization,  but  their 
first  drive  failed  to  reach  Paris  and  ended  in 
the  defeat  of  the  Marne  and  in  time  they  must 
be  worn  down  and  forced  to  give  in. 

I  shall  consider  these  reasons  in  due  order, 
but  there  is  one  new  factor  in  this  war  which 
tends  to  justify  the  ordinary  American  belief 
and  I  shall  therefore  take  it  first. 

Veteran  soldiers  are  not  thinkable  in  modern 
war.  When  armies  fought  in  summer  time  and 
in  winter  rested  and  recuperated  in  snug  quar- 
ters, soldiers  gradually  became  seasoned  veter- 
ans ;  but  now  that  fighting  is  continuous  winter 
and  summer  alike,  and  even  by  night  as  well  as 
by  day,  man's  nerves  soon  get  frayed  out. 
Flesh  and  blood  cannot  support  the  strain  of 
the  perpetual  struggle  and  hardships,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  mad  excitement,  the  unexpected 
attacks  of  airplanes,  the  nerve  shattering  noise 
of  shells  containing  800  pounds  of  high  explo- 
sives and  all  the  terrible  sights,  sounds  and 
smells  of  modern  war. 

A  German  staff  officer  who  had  been  through 
the  siege  of  Paris  in  1870  confessed  to  me  once 


150      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

that  the  German  army  round  Paris  had  grown 
stale  before  the  capital  surrendered.  Fresh 
regiments  had  to  be  brought  up  to  "stiffen,"  as 
he  expressed  it,  the  fighting  line.  This  stiffen- 
ing process  is  now  more  than  ever  necessary. 

The  limit  of  human  endurance  is  soon 
reached,  fresh  troops  are  continually  needed  on 
both  sides  to  strengthen  the  attack,  and  as  the 
Allies,  it  is  thought,  can  more  easily  find  new 
forces  it  seems  reasonable  to  expect  that  they 
must  ultimately  be  victorious. 

This  reasoning,  it  seems  to  me,  is  founded 
on  a  misconception.  The  chief  advantage  which 
the  Germans  possessed  over  their  adversaries, 
according  to  the  Kaiser,  was  speed  of  mobili- 
zation. Their  main  desire  was,  of  course,  to 
wage  war  in  the  enemies'  countries  and  thus 
inflict  the  chief  loss  and  damage  on  their  foes. 
The  German  plan,  therefore,  was  in  the  first 
weeks  of  war  to  overrun  Belgium  and  invade 
France  and  Russian  Poland  in  such  a  way  as 
to  be  able  to  hold  portions  of  both  countries 
almost  indefinitely,  and  this  project  was  car- 
ried out  with  more  or  less  success. 

The  common  American  belief  that  Generals 
Joffre  and  French  put  their  heads  together  and 
stopped  the  German  drive  at  the  gates  of  Paris 
and  threw  the  invader  back  defeated  is  mani- 
festly mistaken.  The  fact  is  that  the  German 
drive  did  not  stop  at  Paris,  but  turned  aside 
from  it  and  continued  on  down  to  the  south 
and  east.     Von   Kluck  reached  Coulommiers 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      151 

and  Sezanne  before  halting  and  the  question 
imposes  itself,  why  did  he  turn  aside  from 
Paris? 

I  was  in  Paris  during  those  early  days  of 
September  and  followed  the  movements  of  the 
armies  as  closely  as  possible.  The  first  thing 
that  put  me  on  the  right  scent  was  a  talk  I  had 
with  M.  Deschanel,  who  told  me  the  Govern- 
ment was  on  the  point  of  leaving  Paris  and  go- 
ing to  Bordeaux. 

Clearly,  the  French  Government  wouldn't 
have  gone  to  Bordeaux  had  they  not  believed 
that  Paris  would  be  taken  or  was  in  imminent 
danger  of  being  taken.  Why  then  did  Von 
Kluck  spare  the  capital  and  rush  past  to  the 
south  and  east? 

As  no  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  fact  has 
yet  been  offered  I  must  give  the  one  which  I 
pieced  together  for  myself  from  a  multitude  of 
data  derived  from  German  papers  as  well  as 
from  French  and  believe  to  be  true. 

Five  German  armies  of  over  150,000  men  each 
and  supported  by  as  many  more,  were  devoted 
to  the  invasion  of  France;  four  were  to  come 
through  Belgium,  and  the  fifth,  commanded  by 
the  Crown  Prince  in  person,  was  to  enter  by 
the  corner  near  Luxemburg  or  through  the 
Duchy.  The  Crown  Prince  decided  to  skirt 
Luxemburg  and  found  in  his  path  the  frontier 
village  of  Longwy  and  its  antiquated  defences. 
But  the  commander  of  Longwy  was  a  French- 
man of  the  heroic  sort;  at  the  outset  he  re- 


152      ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

solved  to  defend  Longwy  as  if  the  outcome  of 
the  whole  war  depended  on  its  holding  out  to 
the  last  hour. 

Accordingly,  he  worked  day  and  night  min- 
ing the  ground  for  miles  in  front  of  the  fort 
where  he  ensconced  himself  like  an  old  spider 
waiting  for  the  flies.  When  the  Crown  Prince's 
men  entered  the  field  to  the  northeast  of  the 
village  he  blew  up  some  thousands  of  them  and 
the  rest  bolted  back  in  confusion;  when  they 
attacked  from  the  southeast  the  same  thing 
happened ;  in  fine,  Longwy  held  up  the  Crown 
Prince  and  his  army  of  150,000  men  for  ten 
days ;  ten  days  during  which  he  heard  of  noth- 
ing but  German  successes:  how  Liege  was 
taken  and  Namur  and  Brussels  put  to  ransom. 
But  though  he  raged  at  being  stopped  he  could 
not  help  congratulating  the  French  commander 
of  Longwy  on  his  magnificent  defence. 

Meanwhile  Gen.  Pau  in  command  of  the 
main  French  army  in  Alsace-Lorraine  had  at 
length  become  aware  that  Longwy  was  doing 
wonders  and  deserved  support;  he  detached  a 
couple  of  army  corps  to  help  in  its  defence. 
They  came  too  late  to  save  the  village;  but 
curiously  enough  they  did  more  and  better 
than  if  they  had  arrived  in  time. 

When  the  Crown  Prince  was  preparing  to 
advance  after  the  surrender  of  Longwy  he 
was  told  of  this  new  French  force;  here  was 
the  opportunity  he  desired;  he  threw  himself 
on  the  two  French  corps,  overwhelmed  them 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      153 

and  drove  them  from  the  field.  Naturally,  they 
retreated  along  the  road  to  the  south  by  which 
they  had  come  and  the  impetuous  Prince  fol- 
lowed hotfoot,  striking,  striking,  hoping  to  an- 
nihilate, and  at  length  got  down  to  the  south 
of  the  Argonne  forest  between  Verdun  and 
Toul  to  St.  Mihiel. 

There  Pau  with  the  flood  of  reinforcements 
coming  from  the  south  stopped  and  held  him 
and  fortified  the  forest  in  his  flank  and  rear. 
The  fifth  German  army  was  caught  as  in  a 
trap.  By  this  time  Von  Kluck  and  the  first 
three  armies  had  got  within  striking  distance 
of  Paris ;  but  the  fourth  German  army  had  been 
delayed  at  Maubeuge  and  the  fifth  German 
army  was  enmeshed  at  St.  Mihiel. 

A  German  Sedan  was  not  to  be  thought  of; 
Von  Kluck  was  ordered  by  the  Emperor  to  ex- 
tricate the  Crown  Prince ;  that  was  why  he  left 
Paris  on  his  right  and  drove  down  to  the  south- 
east to  Coulommiers  and  Sezanne.  By  this 
movement  Pau's  enveloping  army  was  endan- 
gered and  had  to  retreat.  The  Crown  Prince 
was  free.  At  once  Von  Kluck  retreated  to  the 
line  just  north  of  Soissons-Rheims,  which  had 
already  been  chosen  and  partially  entrenched. 

The  so-called  victory  of  the  Allies  on  the 
Marne,  of  which  so  much  has  been  made,  was 
no  victory  in  any  real  sense  of  the  word;  the 
Germans  had  to  retire  to  a  defensible  line  and 
had  begun  to  retire  before  the  French  and  Eng- 
lish attacked.    In  fact  the  French  and  English 


154      ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

had  to  rest  before  they  could  think  of  attacking. 

For  the  last  six  months  the  Germans  have 
held  without  much  difficulty  all  Belgium,  one- 
twelfth  of  France  and  a  great  slice  of  Russian 
Poland;  everywhere  they  are  in  a  position  of 
vantage,  for  though  the  English  hold  the  seas 
they  have  not  been  able  so  far  to  blockade  Ger- 
many or  to  cripple  her  for  want  of  necessary 
war  material,  such  as  copper,  nitrate  or  rubber. 
German  finances,  too,  are  in  a  far  better  posi- 
tion than  any  one  would  have  predicted  they 
would  be  nine  months  ago.  German  3  per  cents 
which  stood  at  80  at  the  beginning  of  the  war, 
are  now  about  68,  while  English  Consols  which 
stood  above  70  then  are  now  about  62.  For 
various  reasons  this  is  not  as  valuable  an  in- 
dex as  it  would  be  if  the  stock  exchanges  had 
been  left  free. 

Is  there  any  reason  for  thinking  that  the  next 
six  months,  or  twelve  months,  or  forty  months, 
for  that  matter,  will  bring  about  a  reversal  of 
the  verdict? 

The  truth  is  the  Germans  have  succeeded  so 
far  because  their  organization  was  and  is  far 
superior  to  that  of  any  or  of  all  the  Allies.  And 
most  people  overlook  the  fact  that  this  superi- 
ority remains  constant,  or  indeed,  increases  by 
comparison  as  time  goes  on. 

The  German  war  machine  is  so  perfect  that 
the  next  six  or  eight  millions  of  soldiers  will 
be  just  as  efficient  as  the  four  or  five  millions 
who  have  borne  the  brunt  up  to  now.    As  the 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      155 

Belgian  and  Servian  forces  have  practically 
been  used  up,  the  superiority  of  the  Germans 
in  the  field  is  likely  to  be  maintained.  The 
truth  is  the  French  and  Germans  are  the  only 
forces  in  the  field  whose  efficiency  may  increase 
rather  than  diminish. 

But  other  factors  may  be  brought  into  the 
account,  which  will  alter  everything. 

The  advent  of  Turkey  into  the  field  has  al- 
ready affected  the  conditions  of  the  war  and  is 
at  once  a  tribute  to  the  splendid  fighting  power 
of  the  Germans  and  the  cleverness  of  German 
diplomacy.  The  Turks  believed  that  the  Ger- 
mans were  going  to  win  or  they  would  never 
have  imperilled  their  very  existence  by  begin- 
ning hostilities.  Of  course  it  was  clear  to  them 
that  if  the  Allies  won  they  would  sooner  or 
later  be  at  the  mercy  of  Russia,  and  a  dozen 
wars  have  taught  them  what  they  would  have 
to  expect  from  the  Slav. 

The  support  of  Turkey  brought  some  imme- 
diate relief  to  Germany ;  Turkey  is  threatening 
Russia  in  the  Black  Sea  and  in  Asia  Minor  and 
the  English  in  Egypt,  and  both  countries  have 
had  to  defend  themselves  against  this  new  foe. 

Moreover,  if  Germany  has  been  able  to  de- 
tach Turkey  from  her  secular  allegiance  to 
Great  Britain,  why  should  she  not  also  win  the 
active  support  of  Italy  ?  The  value  of  Italy  has 
gone  up  enormously  in  the  last  three  months ; 
Italy  can  put  a  million  of  men  in  the  field  at 
once  and  support  that  million  with  another  mil- 


156      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

lion  of  reservists,  and  her  fleet,  too,  is  worth 
considering. 

Her  participation  in  the  war  on  the  side  of 
Germany  would  equalize  the  struggle.  The 
question  for  Italy  is.  Which  of  the  combatants 
will  give  the  higher  price?  Italy  wants  Trieste 
and  the  Trentino  from  Austria,  and  Savoy  and 
Nice  from  France.  Austria  is  unwilling  to  part 
with  the  great  port  of  Trieste  and  France  can- 
not bear  to  give  up  Savoy  and  Nice,  which  are 
now  French  to  the  heart.  Hence  the  neutrality 
of  Italy. 

But  how  long  will  Italy  sit  on  the  fence?  All 
the  factors  here  are  in  favor  of  the  Allies: 
Italy  hates  Austria  and  would  much  prefer 
Trieste  and  the  Trentino  and  ports  in  Albania 
to  Savoy  and  Nice ;  Italy  has  more  to  fear  too 
from  the  fleets  of  the  Allies  bombarding  her 
coast  towns  than  from  an  invasion  by  Austria. 
To  judge  by  the  outbursts  of  popular  feeling 
in  Italy,  it  is  probable  that  Italy  will  take  the 
field  against  her  former  allies;  but  even  this 
stab  would  not  be  necessarily  decisive. 

Whatever  Italy  does  or  refrains  from  doing 
the  price  of  the  remaining  neutral  States  is  go- 
ing up  steadily.  On  which  side  of  the  fence 
will  Bulgaria  come  down?  And  Rumania  and 
Greece?  It  is  already  probable  that  all  these 
States  will  be  drawn  into  the  maelstrom.  The 
sympathy  of  the  Slav  States  should  be  pro- 
Russian,  just  as  the  feeling  of  the  Greeks  is  no- 
toriously on  the  side  of  Great  Britain,  but  sym- 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      157 

pathy  in  this  extremity  may  yield  to  self-inter- 
est. On  which  side  then  will  Bulgaria  and  Ru- 
mania and  Greece  enter  the  conflict? 

It  is  probable,  I  think,  that  Bulgaria  will 
fight  on  the  side  of  Austria  and  Rumania  on 
the  side  of  Russia,  while  Greece  will  oppose 
Turkey  in  order  to  get  part  of  Macedonia  and 
the  Ionian  Islands  from  the  Triple  Entente. 

And  when  these  States  are  drawn  into  the 
quarrel,  the  value  of  Holland  will  have  in- 
creased to  such  an  extent  that  her  neutrality 
will  become  almost  impossible.  Germany  and 
Great  Britain  will  bid  against  each  other  for 
her  support,  and  no  one  can  say  how  she  will 
decide;  or  rather  everything  will  depend  on 
what  course  the  war  takes  in  1915. 

Nine  months  ago  no  American  would  have 
given  a  fig  for  the  hope  of  ultimate  success 
cherished  by  the  Germans;  their  forethought 
and  capacity  have  been  steadily  improving  their 
position,  till  now  it  is  beginning  to  be  seen 
that  they  have  more  than  a  chance  of  drawing. 
If  Italy  remains  neutral,  a  German  defeat  is 
most  improbable. 

It  is  admitted  now  that  the  German  fleet  may 
manage  to  injure  British  commerce  and  send 
up  the  price  of  food  in  Great  Britain  to  famine 
prices,  and  if  that  were  done  the  Germans  might 
well  be  absolute  victors  in  the  colossal  strug- 
gle, for  no  one  denies  now  that  Britain  is  Ger- 
many's chief  enemy. 

There  are  many  other  factors  in  the  problem ; 


158      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

but  in  comparison  with  those  I  have  been 
weighing  they  are  not  immediately  important. 

The  weightiest  factor  in  the  whole  problem 
is  the  incredible  supine  weakness  of  Great  Brit- 
ain. No  one  can  doubt  that  if  she  had  put  her 
hand  in  her  pocket  she  could  at  least  have  in- 
sured the  neutrality  of  Turkey.  It  is  admitted 
now  that  if  she  had  offered  sufficient  monetary 
inducements  to  her  own  population  she  could 
by  this  time  have  thrown  a  million  of  men  into 
France  or,  better  still,  into  Ostend. 

Even  now,  mid-April,  1915,  the  English 
forces  are  only  defending  less  than  40  miles  of 
the  540  miles  of  battle-line  flung  across  France. 

The  conditions  England  has  offered  to  her 
volunteers  and  especially  to  the  widows  and  or- 
phans of  the  men  who  may  be  killed  in  fighting 
for  her  are  disgracefully  mean  and  paltry. 
What  man  will  feel  inclined  to  fight  when  he 
knows  that  if  he  is  killed  his  widow  will  only 
get  $3  a  week  or  so  to  live  upon?  And  it  is  only 
lately  that  as  much  as  this  has  been  offered. 
Under  the  circumstances  it  says  a  great  deal  for 
the  fighting  spirit  of  the  Briton  that  over  two 
millions  of  men  have  offered  their  services, 

But  what  must  be  thought  of  the  British 
Government,  which  at  the  last  push  of  fate  sac- 
rifices victory  to  pick-thank  meanness?  Eng- 
lish Ministers  are  still  intent  on  waging  war 
"on  the  cheap"  when,  had  they  shown  the  spirit 
and  resolution  of  Cromwell  or  even  of  Chat- 
ham, they  might  have  already  decided  the  con- 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      159 

flict.  Chatham  had  given  them  the  lead,  but 
they  seem  incapable  of  even  profiting  by  his 
example. 

They  began  the  war  with  all  the  chances  in 
their  favor,  all  the  powers.  Already  their  lack 
of  insight  and  will  has  made  the  issue  of  the 
struggle  doubtful.  A  few  months  more  of  their 
characteristic  waiting  upon  fortune  and  it  will 
be  too  late.    Will  they  "wake  up"  in  time? 

The  triumvirate  of  Asquith,  Winston 
Churchill  and  Kitchener  is  on  trial ;  so  far  they 
have  done  about  as  little  as  men  could  do  and 
have  brought  the  world  to  wonder  at  their  pov- 
erty of  invention.  They  deserve  the  bitter  gibe 
I  heard  from  an  American  the  other  day :  "The 
Germans  will  fight  to  the  last  German,  the  Bel- 
gians to  the  last  Belgian,  and  the  Britons  to  the 
last — Frenchman." 

Sir  Edward  Grey,  on  the  other  hand,  has 
shown  himself  the  cleverest  diplomatist  in  Eu- 
rope; at  the  beginning  of  the  war  he  won  the 
sympathy  of  all  neutral  peoples  by  the  horror 
he  expressed  at  the  violation  of  Belgian  neu- 
trality by  the  Germans;  he  almost  persuaded 
America  that  Britain  was  fighting  for  little  Bel- 
gium, outraged  and  overwhelmed  by  German 
hordes.  Now  Americans  are  beginning  to  real- 
ize that  England  wanted  Germany's  trade  and 
was  jealous  of  her  astounding  growth  in  indus- 
try, commerce  and  naval  power.  Sir  Edward 
Grey  has  done  splendidly  for  his  country  n^l 
through,  and  if  the  contest  were  to  be  decided 


i6o      ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

by  diplomatic  cunning  and  verbal  skill,  it 
wouldn't  be  dilFiCult  to  select  the  winner. 

Even  now  if  England  proposed  to  Italy  to 
defray  all  the  money  cost  of  her  participation  in 
the  war  with  the  additional  bribe  of  the  Tren- 
tino  and  Trieste  in  case  of  success  it  is  as  cer- 
tain as  anything  can  be  that  Italy  would  take 
the  bait,  and  at  once  the  position  of  Germany 
and  Austria  would  be  greatly  worsened.  By 
spending  two  or  three  hundred  millions  of 
pounds  in  this  way  England  would  be  saving 
money  in  the  long  run;  but  she  still  hesitates 
and  fumbles. 

Nobody  who  knows  them  expects  much  from 
Asquith,  Winston  Churchill  or  Kitchener.  As- 
quith  is  a  mild  and  well  meaning  lawyer  person 
with  a  superb  scholar's  memory  and  excellent 
worka-day  intelligence,  absolutely  unoriginal, 
though  endowed  with  a  very  notable  gift  of 
sonorous  phrases.  He  loves  a  good  dinner  and 
a  good  bottle  of  wine  and  follows  the  French 
proverb  which  says  that  after  forty  one  ought 
to  keep  the  cellar  door  open. 

Winston  Churchill  is  an  arriviste,  as  the 
French  would  say,  of  great  energy  and  quick- 
ness of  mind  and  of  quite  extraordinary  cour- 
age, but  he  knows  no  language  save  his  own,  is 
without  reading  or  genius,  and  cannot  be  ex- 
pected to  inaugurate  a  new  policy.  Kitch- 
ener is  far  past  his  best  and  has  always,  in  my 
opinion,  found  it  easier  to  look  wise  than  to 
act  or  talk  wisely.    Still  Grey  is  there,  and  he 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      i6i 

is  a  considerable  person,  with  remarkable  force 
and  elevation  of  character  and  some  power  of 
independent  thought. 

He  has  the  head  of  a  Roman  General,  cut  as 
sharply  as  a  cameo,  and  is  singularly  free  of 
weakness.  A  courteous,  reserved  gentleman, 
half  athlete,  half  thinker,  he  is  very  good  in- 
deed at  whatever  he  undertakes.  He  has  been 
a  champion  at  tennis  and  keeps  himself  always 
in  the  pink  of  condition.  As  a  young  man  he 
was  very  prudent,  cautious  even;  as  he  grows 
older  he  grows  bolder,  and  that's  an  excellent 
sign.  If  England  does  anything  remarkable  in 
this  crisis,  the  initiative  will  probably  come 
from  Sir  Edward  Grey. 

But  while  admitting  that  the  British  have 
seemingly  the  better  cards  and  should  win  if 
they  knew  how  to  play  them,  I  am  far  from 
sure  that  they  will  win,  or  rather  I  am  con- 
vinced that  the  Germans  will  make  an  advan- 
tageous draw  of  it,  if  indeed  they  do  not  win 
outright. 

For  their  superiority  in  organization  and  in 
fighting  power  is  only  a  symbol  of  their  supe- 
riority in  morale  and  national  enthusiasm. 

Toward  the  middle  of  September  there  was 
an  impassioned  call  for  volunteers  put  forth  by 
the  War  Office  in  Great  Britain;  about  one 
hundred  thousand  men  responded  to  the  appeal 
in  two  weeks,  then  the  enlisting  fell  off,  as  it 
came  to  be  understood  how  poor  the  conditions 
were.     When  the  news  of  this   volunteering 


i62      ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

reached  Germany  over  a  million  men  offered 
themselves  as  volunteers  within  three  days, 
though  their  services  were  not  asked  for  by  the 
Government  and  indeed  had  to  be  refused. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  na- 
tional spirit  and  enthusiasm  of  the  Germans  in 
this  crisis.  That  docile  and  disciplined  people 
showed  itself  capable  of  extraordinary  and  pas- 
sionate devotion  in  1814,  but  in  1914  their  pa- 
triotism has  become  a  religious  fervor  and  the 
world  in  arms  would  not  shock  them.  It  is  ri- 
diculous to  talk  of  militarism  in  this  connec- 
tion. The  whole  German  people  are  with  the 
Kaiser  in  this  war  and  solemnly  resolved  to 
bring  it  to  a  great  issue. 

If  there  is  not  enough  flour,  then  they  will 
cut  down  their  consumption  of  bread ;  if  there 
is  not  enough  copper  or  nitrate  or  rubber,  their 
chemists  go  to  work  and  produce  satisfactory 
substitutes :  no  one  thinks  of  surrender,  or  of 
any  outcome  but  an  honorable  peace.  All  Ger- 
mans regard  this  as  a  defensive  war  and  are 
prepared  to  prove  their  contention. 

If  France  wants  peace,  they  say,  France  can 
have  it;  we  will  give  them  back  the  French 
land  we  hold;  in  the  same  way,  if  Russia  sees 
there  is  no  hope  of  winning  and  desires  peace, 
we  will  hand  back  to  them  that  part  of  Russian 
Poland  which  we  occupy  at  present.  Some- 
thing we  must  have  for  our  successes  and  im- 
mense self-sacrifice — Antwerp  if  Herr  Ballin  or 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      163 

Dr.  Dernberg  is  to  be  trusted, — Antwerp  or  a 
certain  right  of  way  through  Belgium,  and, 
above  all,  the  neutrality  of  the  seas. 

The  question  is :  Will  the  Allies  fight  to  the 
last  rather  than  accept  some  such  solution  of 
the  problem?  Of  course,  they  all  declare  they 
will,  and  they  will  probably  stick  to  their  re- 
solve till  they  see  they  cannot  hope  to  succeed. 
Then  they  will  quickly  become  reasonable  and 
accept  the  inevitable. 

For  already  the  weakness  inherent  in  all  al- 
lied forces  has  shown  itself  distinctly.  No  one 
now  doubts  the  recent  statement  of  the  "Koel- 
nische  Zeitung"  that  France  would  have  been 
willing  to  make  peace  early  in  September  on 
the  basis  of  the  status  quo  ante.  England,  it  is 
said,  prevented  this  by  declaring  that  in  that 
case  she  would  treat  France  as  an  enemy,  and 
thus  forced  her  to  accept  the  agreement  that 
none  of  the  Allies  would  make  peace  sepa- 
rately. 

But  such  agreements  are  hardly  more  than 
"scraps  of  paper,"  As  soon  as  Russia  sees  that 
it  is  her  cue  to  make  peace  she'll  make  it  with- 
out caring  greatly  whether  it  suits  France  or 
England.  England,  of  course,  wants  a  fight  to 
a  finish,  for  so  alone  can  she  hope  to  gain  Ger- 
many's trade  and  commerce,  but,  compara- 
tively speaking,  England  is  not  suffering ;  it  is 
her  allies  who  are  bearing  the  burden  of  the 
war.    It  may  be  assumed  that  if  Germany  can 


i64      ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

keep  her  hold  of  France  and  Russian  Poland, 
peace  will  be  welcomed  by  one  or  both  of  these 
countries  before  191 5  is  done  with. 

If  on  the  other  hand,  Russia  overruns  Hun- 
gary, or  the  Italians  join  in  the  attack  and  force 
Austria  to  make  peace,  still  Germany  will  have 
to  be  reckoned  with  and  once  within  her  own 
frontiers  she  would  be,  I  believe,  unbeatable. 

If  Germany  had  a  diplomatist  like  Sir  Ed- 
ward Grey  she  would  try  to  finish  off  the  war  in 
a  month  by  offering  Russia  certain  advantages 
in  the  Balkans.  After  all  why  should  Germany 
or  even  Austria  object  to  the  Russian  bear  get- 
ting Constantinople?  All  that  dog-in-the-man- 
ger business  is  unworthy  of  a  great  people. 
Why  should  German  lives  be  sacrificed  to  pre- 
vent Russia  getting  a  good  port? 

Now  is  the  opportunity  for  the  Kaiser  to 
prove  himself  a  master  of  diplomacy.  The  Ger- 
man jealousy  of  the  Slav  and  the  Slav  hatred  of 
the  German  are  alike  pitiable ;  why  not  make  an 
end  of  these  tribal  disputes?  And  if  Germany 
got  Russia  to  agree  to  peace  conditions  France 
could  easily  be  pacified.  France  feels  that  she 
has  burned  her  paws  badly  getting  the  chest- 
nuts out  of  the  fire  for  Great  Britain.  She  had 
no  conception  of  the  strength  of  Germany  and 
would  be  willing  to  make  peace  at  once  on  con- 
dition of  getting  her  own  territory  back  and 
perhaps  the  distinctively  French  communes  in 
Alsace-Lorraine  for  the  sake  of  vainglory,  and 
Germany  can  afford  to  be  generous  in  this  mat- 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      165 

ter  if  she  gets  trade-free  routes  through  Bel- 
gium, and  the  neutrality  of  the  seas  is  guar- 
anteed, and  who  would  deny  her  this  solatium? 
No  one  but  England,  and  England  without 
allies  would  be  powerless. 

At  any  rate  there  are  the  cards.  Either  side 
may  win  and  end  the  devilish  deadlock;  who 
will  be  wise  first?  Germany  or  England?  Ger- 
many by  offering  peace  to  Russia  and  France? 
Or  England  by  uniting  them  and  Italy  as  well 
in  a  new  gigantic  effort  to  smash  and  ruin 
Germany,  her  great  commercial  rival? 

Some  say  that  if  Germany  seems  likely  to 
triumph  the  United  States  will  take  a  hand  in 
the  game;  but  that  to  me  is  simply  incredible. 
It  would  not  only  be  against  her  plain  self-in- 
terest but  also  against  the  interests  of  hu- 
manity. Even  now  America  is  mainly  respon- 
sible for  the  continuance  of  the  war.  If  the 
United  States  refused  to  supply  any  of  the  com- 
batants with  the  munitions  of  war,  the  war 
would  come  to  an  end  in  a  month.  President 
Wilson  thought  it  his  duty  to  forbid  the  export 
of  arms  and  munitions  to  Mexico,  a  similar  or- 
der now  applied  to  all  the  warring  peoples, 
would  bring  about  peace  in  double  quick  time. 
The  Pope  seems  to  expect  such  an  order  from 
him ;  but  American  public  opinion  is  so  wedded 
to  the  Allies  that  it  would  almost  need  a  super- 
man to  brave  it. 

One  result  is  most  probable — a  draw.  When 
near  exhaustion  the  warring  powers  may  con- 


i66      ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

sent  to  lay  down  their  arms  on  a  return  to  the 
status  quo  ante.  This  outcome  would  be  dread- 
fully unsatisfactory  to  every  one ;  but  anything 
is  better  than  to  continue  the  useless  butchery 
and  waste  of  such  a  war. 

CHAPTER  X 

The  "Soul  of  Goodness  in  Things  Evil" 

With  that  sweet-thoughted  wisdom  which 
distinguished  his  mature  work  Shakespeare 
recognized  that  there  is  always  "some  soul  of 
goodness  in  things  evil";  but  if  it  is  exceed- 
ingly difficult  to  foretell  who  will  win  in  this 
world  struggle,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  fore- 
cast the  spiritual  outcome  of  it.  One  can  speak 
perhaps  with  a  little  confidence  in  generalities ; 
but  as  soon  as  one  tries  to  be  concrete  and 
definite,  doubts  swarm  and  thought  is  dis- 
tracted. Still,  one  thing  is  certain:  world  shak- 
ing events  always  embody  moral  lessons;  war 
is  a  great  exposer  of  shams  and  revealer  of  vir- 
tues. A  desperate  struggle  is  sure  to  set  real 
values  in  high  relief. 

What  then  are  the  chief  values  already  dis- 
covered and  what  the  pretences?  The  first 
value  which  has  hitherto  been  underrated  is  the 
value  of  the  British  command  of  the  sea.  We 
all  esteemed  it  highly  when  we  thought  about 
it  at  all,  but  it  wasn't  sufficiently  present  to  our 
minds  as  a  unique  force,  a  singular  advantage. 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      167 

There  is  much  more  sea  than  land  on  this  earth 
of  ours,  and  England,  not  content  with  pos- 
sessing more  than  half  the  temperate  zone,  pos- 
sesses also,  or  at  least  rules,  all  the  seas. 
Sooner  or  later  that  condition  of  things  must 
cease ;  sooner  or  later  the  seas  and  oceans  like 
the  fields  of  air  must  be  neutralized  in  the  in- 
terests of  all  nations  and  policed  by  all  peo- 
ples in  some  rough  proportion  to  population 
and  power.  This,  it  seems  to  me,  should  be  the 
first  ethical  result  of  the  present  contest. 

It  may  take  years  or  even  decades  to  bring 
the  ideal  to  fulfilment ;  but  this  war  has  shown 
that  when  one  Power  holds  the  hegemony  of 
the  seas  the  rights  of  all  neutrals  are  injured 
and  neutral  trade  placed  at  the  most  serious 
disadvantage.  It  is  the  old  story  of  the  strong 
despot  dethroned  by  the  combination  of  the 
many  weak. 

All  virtues,  all  powers,  one  sees,  will  be  set 
in  higher  relief.  Before  the  war  no  one  imag- 
ined that  Germany  would  not  only  gain  an 
enormous  initial  advantage,  but  would  hold  it 
month  after  month,  and  when  more  than  eight 
months  had  passed  would  still  be  warring  in 
the  enemies'  countries. 

The  reputation  of  Germany  has  already 
grown  out  of  all  calculation.  For  a  century  or 
more  to  come  it  will  probably  be  regarded  as 
the  model  State  and  its  institutions  will  be  imi- 
tated, its  institutions  copied,  all  the  forms  of  it 
aped  and  assimilated  while  the  informing  spirit 


i68      ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

of  it  may  pass  almost  unappreciated.  The  suc- 
cess of  Germany  is  calculated  to  stereotype  and 
fossilize  German  institutions  and  to  relax  rather 
than  to  quicken  the  inspiring  genius.  When 
we  prove  ourselves  superior  to  our  neighbors 
it  is  only  natural  that  we  should  rest  on  accom- 
plishment and  seek  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  our 
labors.  Besides,  German  success  in  war  is  sure 
to  be  followed  by  an  extraordinary  growth  of 
German  industry  and  commerce.  This  fact  is 
not  sufficiently  appreciated  even  in  America. 
Suppose  peace  were  concluded  to-morrow,  in- 
ternational and  especially  American  capital 
would  flow  to  Germany  where  it  would  be  sure 
of  highest  returns  rather  than  to  Great  Britain 
where  the  returns  have  for  long  been  small. 
German  wealth  would  grow  in  the  night,  and 
nothing  weakens  moral  fibre  and  mental  effort 
so  much  as  material  prosperity.  Let  us  con- 
sider then  how  Germany  is  likely  to  suffer 
from  this  slackening  of  "the  will  to  surpass.". 
Germany  is  a  curious  amalgam  of  a  hierar- 
chy framed  and  fitted  for  war  grafted  on  demo- 
cratic institutions  and  inspired  in  civil  life  by 
an  intensely  democratic  spirit  of  equality  and 
willingness  to  work — a  sort  of  despotism  with 
strong  socialistic  tendencies.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  it  is  the  despotic  side  which  has 
been  strengthened  by  the  war  so  far,  just  as  the 
nominal  socialism  has  been  weakened.  And 
this  process  is  certain  to  continue  and  increase 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      169 

even  if  Germany  holds  but  her  own  in  the  war 
and  makes  a  draw  of  it. 

National  vanity  will  come  into  play  and  the 
German  Kiplings  and  Newbolts  will  all  declare 
that  no  nation  ever  faced  so  formidable  a  com- 
bination of  enemies  without  flinching.  German 
valor  and  German  virtue  will  be  lauded  to  the 
skies ;  in  fact,  everything  German  will  have  an 
added  value  and  take  on  a  new  lustre.  The 
first  consequences  are  already  showing  them- 
selves ;  the  authority  of  the  Hohenzollerns  will 
be  affirmed ;  the  power  of  the  military  caste  in- 
ordinately strengthened;  German  socialism 
will  become  critical  rather  than  revolutionary ; 
the  reforming  elements  will  all  be  weakened; 
German  pride  will  appear  to  be  a  merit,  and 
for  some  time  the  fighting  strength  of  Ger- 
many will  be  increased. 

If  Germany  in  the  result  holds  a  right  of  way 
through  Belgium  and  all  seas  are  neutralized, 
her  oversea  commerce  and  trade  will  increase 
by  leaps  and  bounds.  At  once  her  rivalry  with 
England  will  become  the  central  fact  of  the  new 
time,  and  a  contest  with  England  for  trade 
supremacy  or  even  ultimately  for  South  Africa 
as  a  field  of  colonization  is  as  certain  as  any- 
thing can  be. 

Who  will  win  in  the  desperate  duel  depends 
on  the  effect  of  the  war  on  Great  Britain,  for  it 
is  surely  obvious  now  to  every  one  that  Ger- 
many and  England  are  the  real  rivals  and  foes. 


170      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

What  Germany  ought  to  do  at  once  is  to 
conclude  peace  with  Russia  and  with  France 
and  address  herself  to  the  real  conflict  with 
England.  She  would  have  done  that  already 
if  her  diplomacy  had  been  at  all  equal  to  her 
fighting  power.  Clearly  it  is  now  her  most 
pressing  need.  But  is  it  possible?  one  will  ask. 
England  has  been  very  clever  in  binding  both 
Russia  and  France  in  a  treaty  not  to  conclude 
peace  separately.  What  can  Germany  do  to 
untie  the  allied  bond? 

Bismarck  would  tell  her  to  begin  with  Rus- 
sia. The  Czar  admires  the  Kaiser ;  the  Roman- 
offs are  still  more  despotic  than  the  Hohenzol- 
lerns;  in  many  respects  too  the  needs  of  Rus- 
sia and  the  ambitions  of  Russia  resemble  those 
of  Germany.  Russia  wants  to  get  to  Constan- 
tinople above  all  things,  as  Germany  wants  to 
keep  Antwerp.  Germany  can  give  financial  aid 
to  Russia  almost  as  freely  as  France  has  done, 
and  if  Russia  demands  territorial  aggrandize- 
ment it  would  pay  Germany  to  give  her  Galicia 
for  the  sake  of  an  immediate  peace. 

With  Russia  pacified  Germany  could  deal 
with  France  at  once.  She  could  offer  to  with- 
draw from  French  soil  and  even  concede  some 
French  communes  in  Lorraine.  France  could 
not  hesitate.  She  would  conclude  peace,  and 
so  Germany  would  at  length  come  face  to  face 
with  her  real  enemy. 

Everything  will  depend  then  on  which  Power 
is  the  stronger,  Great  Britain  or  Germany.    In 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      171 

my  opinion,  Germany  would  win  in  the  strug- 
gle, for  England  in  one  respect  is  woefully 
weak.  Thanks  to  the  greed  of  her  land  own- 
ing oligarchy,  she  does  not  produce  one-quar- 
ter enough  food  to  supply  her  own  wants ;  this 
is  the  Achilles  heel  of  England 

Face  to  face  with  England  alone  Germany 
could  quickly  build  a  navy  or  at  least  subma- 
rines and  airships  enough  to  lame  English  com- 
merce and  send  up  the  price  of  food  in  Great 
Britain  to  famine  prices.  But  why  do  I  assume 
that  Germany  will  show  more  initiative  and 
forethought  than  England?  Simply  because 
she  is  showing  more  now. 

Already,  had  there  been  any  prevision  or  or- 
dinary foresight  in  Great  Britain,  her  statesmen 
would  have  had  at  least  three  submarines 
and  airships  too  for  every  one  owned  by  Ger- 
mans ;  but  the  Briton  is  proud  to  owe  as  little 
as  possible  to  his  brains.  Germany  has  al- 
ready taken  measures  to  protect  her  food  sup- 
plies and  Germany's  need  in  this  respect  is  not 
a  tenth  so  pressing  as  England's  need.  But 
nothing  will  ever  teach  the  English  oligarchy 
or  dissipate  their  pleasure  sodden  dream  of 
perpetual  parasitical  enjoyment  except  defeat 
in  war.  They  have  always  "muddled  through" 
somehow  or  other,  and  it  is  easier  to  go  jn  from 
day  to  day  and  from  hand  to  mouth  than  to 
think  and  by  thinking  avoid  catastrophe  and 
prepare  triumph. 

The  great  trinity  of  Asquith,  Churchill  and 


172      ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

Kitchener  may  be  trusted  to  muddle  sleepily 
along  till  they  are  awakened  by  a  sudden  ter- 
rifying rise  in  the  price  of  bread  and  by  the 
growl  of  revolt  from  the  East  End,  hunger  sup- 
plying courage  One-third  of  England's  popu- 
iD.tion  is  always  on  the  verge  of  starvation,  as 
Booth  proved;  this  is  England's  desperate 
v/eakness.  Half  a  dozen  wheat-ships  captured 
by  the  Germans  or  sunk  by  their  submarines 
and  England  would  have  to  pay  at  once  for  the 
callous  selfishness  of  her  rich,  the  corruption  of 
her  judiciary,  the  inhuman  shortsightedness  of 
her  politicians.  There  would  either  be  a  social 
revolution  in  England  or  she  would  accept  de- 
feat, hand  Germany  her  sea  sceptre  and  sink 
to  the  level  of  another  Holland.  Her  noble 
masters  might  in  their  hearts  prefer  this  latter 
alternative ;  but  the  English  people  are  a  proud 
and  struggle  loving  people ;  once  "up  against  it" 
they  may  be  trusted  to  get  rid  of  their  snob- 
bishness, make  short  work  of  their  parasite 
governors  and  get  down  to  business. 

The  one  hope  of  progress  in  England  is  sharp 
defeat  in  war:  "Prosperity,"  says  the  French 
thinker,  "prosperity  reveals  vices ;  adversity, 
virtues."  Every  one  who  loves  England  should 
pray  for  a  bitter  lesson.  More  than  a  hundred 
years  ago  now  Tom  Paine  declared  that  noth- 
ing would  civilize  England  till  the  blood  of  her 
children  had  been  shed  on  their  own  hearth- 
stones.    It  needs  a  defeat  in  war  to  wrest  the 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      173 

land  of  England  from  the  lords  who  stole  it  and 
give  it  back  to  the  people. 

And  this  first  reform  would  pave  the  way  for 
a  thousand  others,  for  the  democratization  of 
the  judiciary  and  inauguration  of  free  speech 
and  free  criticism,  for  a  national  system  of  edu- 
cation, for  modern  universities  and  technical 
schools,  for  the  endowment  of  chemical  and 
physical  laboratories,  for  the  satisfaction  of 
spiritual  even  more  than  material  needs.  De- 
feat might  turn  England  into  a  modern  state 
and  give  her  a  chance  of  union  with  her  colo- 
nies on  a  democratic  basis  and  a  new  lease  of 
life  as  a  Confederation  of  sister  states. 

But  will  this  be  the  outcome,  will  England 
be  defeated?  Or  will  she  not  get  Italy  to  strike 
in  with  her  and  Rumania  and  Greece  and 
slowly  hem  in  and  finally  crush  her  great  Ger- 
man rival?  Even  in  that  case  her  day  of  trial 
can  only  be  deferred;  there  is  no  abiding  place 
in  this  world  for  such  an  oligarchy  as  that  of 
England.  I  regard  German  virtue,  that  is,  Ger- 
man efficiency  and  German  valor,  as  the  high- 
est in  the  European  world  to-day ;  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  Germany  can  be  beaten  by  the  Allies ; 
but  if  she  be  defeated  and  forced  to  accept  con- 
ditions of  peace,  she  will  spring  again  to  power 
quicker  than  before  and  will  then  be  unable  to 
make  any  mistake  as  to  her  real  foe :  sooner  or 
later  Germany  and  England  must  fight  their 
quarrel  out  or  reach  a  settlement  by  agreement. 


174      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

A  permanent  settlement  could  easily  be 
reached  at  once  by  a  little  common  sense.  All 
countries,  especially  England  and  Germany, 
should  consent  to  at  least  partial  disarmament 
on  condition  that  the  seas  and  fields  of  air  were 
neutralized  and  excluded  from  war  forever. 
Smaller  details  present  no  difficulty ;  the  French 
communes  of  Alsace-Lorraine  should  be  given 
back  to  France  and  my  opinion  of  German 
idealism  is  so  high  that  I  don't  think  this  would 
be  denied  if  all  German  colonies  were  restored. 

It  should  be  easy  for  England  to  put  her 
house  in  order  without  the  sharp  compulsion  of 
defeat  and  necessity ;  but  I  am  convinced  there 
is  small  hope  of  it.  Those  who  think  so  don't 
know  England,  and  the  many  warnings  she  has 
had.  Prophets  have  been  sent  to  her,  such  as 
Carlyle  and  Ruskin ;  but  England  does  not  even 
listen  to  their  Jeremiads;  again  and  again,  as 
in  the  South  African  war,  she  has  only  man- 
aged to  escape  defeat  at  an  overwhelming  cost ; 
but  still  she  won't  stop  even  to  think.  She 
alienated  the  world  by  her  unprovoked  attack 
on  the  Boers,  and  France,  in  order  to  grab 
Egypt,  and  Egypt  is  plainly  a  source  of  weak- 
ness to  her  to-day  and  not  of  strength,  and 
South  Africa  she  had  to  restore  to  the  Boers, 
though  the  silly  war  had  cost  her  a  thousand 
millions  of  pounds.  At  length  she  has  a  real 
enemy  and  will  either  have  to  fight  for  her 
lordship  of  the  seas  or  make  a  reasonable  peace. 

Let  us  suppose,  however,  that  the  Allies  ulti- 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      175 

mately  win,  either  through  the  defection  of 
Austria,  which  seems  the  most  likely  cause,  or 
through  a  gradual  process  of  wearing  down  or 
because  of  the  entrance  of  fresh  Powers  into 
the  field,  such  as  Italy  and  Rumania.  Let  us 
admit  the  worst — that  Germany  may  have  to 
consent  to  partial  dismemberment.  Every  one 
knows  how  the  English  governing  classes  at 
the  beginning  of  the  war  talked  of  giving  Al- 
sace and  Lorraine  back  to  France;  Galicia,  it 
was  hinted,  would  be  a  suitable  reward  for 
Russia ;  then  monetary  compensation  would 
have  to  be  provided  for  Belgium;  Heligoland 
would  have  to  go  back  to  Great  Britain,  with 
most  of  the  German  colonies  in  East  Africa, 
and  the  Kiel  Canal  would  be  destroyed  or 
handed  over  to  Holland. 

What  in  such  an  extravagant  case  as  this 
would  be  the  spiritual  outcome  of  the  war? 
What  soul  of  goodness  would  come  to  light? 

France  would  have  to  be  more  on  the  alert 
and  better  armed  than  in  the  past;  Belgium 
would  have  to  ally  herself  closely  with  France 
for  protection ;  Russia  and  England  would  pal- 
ter on  in  the  old  way ;  the  autocracy  in  the  one 
and  the  oligarchy  in  the  other  would  alone  be 
satisfied.  England  would  probably  adopt  con- 
scription, might  even  take  some  half  measures 
toward  increasing  her  home  production  of  food- 
stuffs, but  in  the  main  everything  would  go  on 
as  before,  and — Germany?  What  would  be- 
come of  Germany? 


176      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

Slowly  but  surely  Germany  would  win  up 
again;  international  capital  is  very  acute  and 
international  capital  would  flow  to  her.  In  ten 
years  or  in  twenty,  according  to  the  conditions 
imposed,  she  would  again  come  to  the  front 
and  challenge  her  rival.  The  next  time  Eng- 
land will  not  be  helped  by  Russia,  France  and 
Japan;  and  by  herself  she  has  hardly  any 
chance  of  succeeding,  for  this  reason ;  her  ablest 
sons  all  go  to  India,  or  in  England  devote  them- 
selves to  upholding  the  oligarchy  because  of 
the  rewards.  There  is  no  middle  class  educa- 
tion in  England;  hardly  any  high  education  of 
any  sort ;  the  mental  product  is  woefully  insuf- 
ficient. I  always  come  back  to  the  same  re- 
frain :  only  through  defeat  or  by  some  miracle 
will  England  be  brought  to  her  senses  or 
turned  into  a  modern  State. 

There  is  still  another  alternative.  England 
is  now  buttressed  by  her  democratic  colonies, 
by  Canada  and  Australia  and  New  Zealand, 
who  do  not  realize  that  their  support  in  war 
prevents  the  internal  forces  of  reform  from 
compelling  vital  and  life  giving  changes.  In 
another  twenty  or  thirty  years  these  colonies 
will  be  so  powerful  that  Germany  may  hesitate 
to  attack  Great  Britain;  it  is  possible  that  the 
daughter  States  by  protecting  England  may 
preserve  her  in  her  present  decadent  state  for 
another  century  or  so — a  dishonored  and  dis- 
honorable old  age. 

If  they  do,  so  much  the  worse  for  her;  her 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      177 

gift  to  humanity  has  then  been  given.  Nothing 
more  can  be  hoped  from  her.  The  pages  of  her 
history  are  all  written.  Sooner  or  later  the 
great  Powers,  headed  by  Germany  or  the 
United  States,  will  take  the  sceptre  of  the  seas 
from  her  nerveless  hands  and  neutralize  the 
waters  as  they  must  soon  neutralize  the  air. 

CHAPTER    XI 

Some  Effects  of  the  War  Upon  America 

My  friends  tell  me  that  I  ought  to  end  this 
book  with  a  chapter  setting  forth  the  lessons 
that  the  war  holds  for  Americans,  and  with 
some  attempt  at  least  to  calculate  what  effects 
the  war  v/ill  have  on  our  civilization.  It  is  im- 
possible to  play  prophet  in  specific  details. 
The  prophet  should  confine  himself  to  general, 
broad  results ;  but  certain  results  of  the  war  on 
the  United  States  can  already  be  traced,  and 
it  is  safe  to  infer  what  will  be  from  that  which 
has  already  taken  place. 

The  first  effect  of  the  war  on  America  was  to 
throw  thousands  of  men  and  women  out  of 
employment,  especially  in  New  York;  roughly 
speaking,  the  percentage  of  unemployed  was 
doubled ;  yet  neither  the  government  at  Wash- 
ington nor  the  State  legislature  nor  the  munici- 
pality did  anything  to  remedy  this  dreadful  in- 
justice. A  thousand  years  hence  such  negli- 
gence will  be  regarded  as  criminally  stupid. 


178      ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

The  State  that  permits  it  is  much  like  the  man 
who  allows  his  hand  or  foot  to  be  frost-bitten. 

The  next  result  of  the  war  here  is  the  pres- 
ent agitation  for  a  large  increase  of  our  army 
and  navy.  Armament  makers  and  dealers  in 
munitions  of  war  are  pretty  sure  to  press  their 
case  as  strongly  as  possible,  and  while  the 
thinker  realizes  that  the  result  of  the  war 
should  be  to  induce  America  to  seek  peace  and 
ensue  it  more  resolutely  than  ever,  the  trades 
and  professions  interested  in  producing  the 
materials  of  war,  are  determined  to  make 
America  pacific  by  providing  her  with  many 
new  and  sharp  teeth.  They  refuse  to  believe 
with  Shakespeare  that  "the  power  to  do  ill 
deeds,  often  makes  ill  deeds  done." 

In  both  respects,  in  the  perfect  contempt  we 
show  for  the  unemployed  and  the  determina- 
tion to  increase  our  armaments,  we  seem  in- 
tent on  imitating  the  worst  faults  of  Europe. 

Instead  of  increasing  our  army  and  navy  and 
so  copying  Germany  in  the  militarism  which 
most  Americans  dislike,  it  would  be  well  for  us 
to  imitate  Germany  in  those  departments  of 
life  in  which  she  has  set  the  world  a  great  ex- 
ample and  been  most  successful.  Germany  has 
brought  into  life  the  ideal  of  the  perfect  State, 
the  State  as  an  organic  whole  in  which  the  rich 
and  powerful  are  forced  to  fulfil  all  sorts  of 
obligations  towards  the  weak  and  the  poor  on 
the  one  hand,  and  towards  the  intellectuals  on 
the  other.    The  body-politic  cannot  be  healthy, 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      179 

Bismarck  saw,  unless  every  individual  cell  of 
it,  is  fed  and  functioning  properly.  We  should 
provide  work  for  our  laborers  and  proper  food 
for  our  poor  school  children,  food  being  even 
more  necessary  than  teaching.  Germany  has 
spent  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  a  year  in 
this  way,  much  more  than  she  has  spent  on  her 
army  and  navy  together;  and  a  great  part  of 
her  strength  comes  from  the  fact  that  she  has 
taken  special  care  of  her  weaker  citizens. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  social  scale,  too, 
there  are  valuable  lessons  to  be  learned  from 
the  older  civilization  of  Germany  and  France. 
There  is  scarcely  any  State  or  municipal  en- 
dowment of  science  or  of  art  in  America.  We 
owe  most  of  our  growth,  according  to  Darwin- 
ism, to  the  intellectuals  or  "sports"  of  genius. 
It  would  be  to  our  self-interest,  therefore,  to 
take  care  of  our  intellectuals  by  founding  chem- 
ical and  physical  laboratories  in  every  city  and 
by  providing  in  every  large  town  opera  houses 
for  music-lovers,  theatres  for  the  lovers  of 
drama,  and  art  galleries  for  the  lovers  of  plastic 
art.  America  to-day  is  starving  the  souls  as 
well  as  the  bodies  of  her  children. 

It  might  be  advisable  in  other  respects  to 
follow  the  example  of  Germany.  We  Ameri- 
cans have  been  tinkering  with  the  regulation 
of  railways  ever  since  Mr.  Roosevelt's  famous 
dictum  that  "the  highways  of  the  nation  must 
be  kept  open  to  all  upon  equal  terms."  For 
the  last  fifteen  years  or  so,  ever  since  the  Sher- 


i8o      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

man  Law  of  i8go,  our  politicians  have  been 
trying  to  regulate  railway  rates  and  competi- 
tion and  get  rid  of  the  grosser  injustices  and 
evils  of  this  great  monopoly.  It  is  surely  plain 
now  that  all  such  attempts  are  absurd.  The 
only  way  to  get  rid  of  the  evils  of  privately 
owned  railroads  is  for  the  State  to  take  over 
the  railroads,  just  as  the  State  or  county  or 
municipality  has  already  taken  over  the  roads. 
The  health  of  the  whole  organism  depends  on 
the  motor-nerves  being  healthy,  and  the  idea 
that  the  nerves  should  favor  one  part  of  the 
body  in  preference  to  another  is  ludicrously 
absurd. 

One  influence  has  shown  itself  all  over  Eu- 
rope in  the  last  twenty  years  unmistakably. 
With  the  growth  of  national  consciousness, 
with  the  quickened  sense  of  our  responsibility 
towards  our  weaker  brethren  in  the  State,  has 
come  an  astonishing  increase  in  the  religious 
spirit.  Everywhere  the  scepticism  of  twenty 
years  ago  is  dying  out.  Even  in  France  there 
is  a  marked  growth  in  Christian  faith  and  feel- 
ing, a  wave  of  emotion  which  will  certainly 
grow  fuller  and  may  at  length  lead  to  a  revival 
in  religion,  as  there  is  already  apparent  on 
every  side  a  second  and  greater  renaissance  of 
art.  The  effect  of  this  second  Reformation  will 
be  in  turn  an  enormous  quickening  of  our  sense 
of  responsibility  to  others,  and  of  our  concep- 
tion of  the  need  and  value  of  ideal  aims. 

On  the  material  side,  the  war  is  likely  to 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      i8i 

bring  about  changes  in  America  which  are  eas- 
ily calculated.  Before  the  war  the  United 
States  owed  England  alone  something  like  four 
thousand  millions  of  dollars.  By  the  end  of 
the  war  she  will  have  paid  a  good  deal  of  that 
enormous  sum  in  munitions  of  war  and  pro- 
visions, in  corn  and  in  cotton,  all  sold  at  a  very 
high  price.  In  other  words,  the  United  States 
is  clearing  herself  of  debt  with  great  rapidity, 
and  is  certainly  not  pajdng  much  more  than 
sixty  cents  for  every  dollar  borrowed.  This 
must  lead  to  an  increase  of  wealth  in  America ; 
but  those  who  think  that  American  trade  will 
therefore  experience  a  vast  increase  of  pros- 
perity after  the  war,  are  reckoning  without 
their  host.  The  war  has  inflated  prices  in  many 
departments  of  industry  in  America,  and  this 
inflation  of  prices  is  contagious.  Prices  in 
America  after  the  war  will  rule  high.  On  the 
other  hand,  European  countries  having  lost 
half  or  more  than  half  of  their  savings,  will  feel 
poor  and  be  poor;  consequently,  prices  there 
will  rule  very  low.  European  countries  will 
export  goods  heavily  to  the  only  market  open 
to  them  which  will  have  gold  to  give — namely 
America.  Accordingly,  the  trade  of  America 
after  the  war  will  have  to  meet  the  severe  com- 
petition of  cheap  European  products. 

Now  that  I  am  come  to  the  end  of  this  book 
I  am  full  of  apprehension.  I  can  scarcely  lay 
down  the  pen  for  anxious  searching  of  soul. 
Controversy  is  seldom  literature:  war  is  the 


i82      ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

worst  subject  for  the  artist.  It  provides  shad- 
ows only — sadness,  misery  and  desolation — 
pathos  enough  for  anything,  but  few  high 
lights  which  are  just  as  necessary  to  make  a 
living  picture.  There  is  not  love  enough  or 
joy  enough  or  laughter  enough  in  war  to  bal- 
ance the  gloom. 

Truth,  however,  has  its  own  appeal,  but  it  is 
exceedingly  difficult  to  find  an  expression 
worthy  of  that  austere  divinity.  The  words 
we  use  are  like  little  pieces  of  colored  glass: 
it  is  almost  impossible  to  arrange  them  so  as 
to  render  the  white  light  of  truth  in  its  perfect 
purity.  At  the  worst,  however,  one  can  follow 
Othello's  counsel :  "Nothing  extenuate  nor  set 
down  ought  in  malice."  This  is  not  a  very  high 
standard.  The  artist  should  do  more  than  this ; 
he  should  find  a  way  of  expressing  Othello's 
soul,  the  flame  of  courage  and  impersonal  de- 
votion in  him  who  was  "great  of  heart." 

Now  have  I  done  this?  Have  I  shown  the 
souls  of  Germany  and  England?  As  regards 
Germany,  I  have  certainly  done  my  best,  but  I 
am  conscious  of  not  having  done  full  justice  to 
England.  What  then  is  the  soul  of  England 
to-day?  What  is  she  really  doing?  What  is 
her  gift  to  the  world  in  this  last  half  century? 

The  richest  men  in  the  world  are  constantly 
drifting  to  London.  The  Astors  and  Vander- 
bilts,  the  Beits  and  Wernhers  and  Speyers  all 
flock  thither.  The  fact  is,  life  is  more  pleasant 
to  the  rich  in  England  than  anywhere  else  on 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      183 

earth.  A  German  of  high  rank  told  me  the 
other  day  that  he  regarded  life  in  an  English 
country  house  as  nearer  perfection  than  any 
other  life.  Now  what  truth  is  there  in  this 
praise? 

Englishmen  of  the  best  class,  it  is  admitted, 
dress  better  than  other  men  and  among  them- 
selves show  the  most  charming  manners,  un- 
affected, simple,  familiar.  The  food  and  drink, 
too,  are  better  in  England  than  they  are  any- 
where else.  It  is  often  said  that  the  cooking 
in  England  is  bad.  That  is  true.  The  cooks 
are  generally  bad  when  they  are  not  French; 
but  the  English  have  the  highest  ideal  of  cook- 
ing in  the  world.  They  have  the  aristocratic 
ideal  which  is  that  every  article  of  food  should 
preserve  its  own  distinctive  flavor.  If  you 
would  taste  a  potato  properly,  you  must  have 
it  simply  boiled  in  its  skin.  Game  should  be 
lightly  roasted  before  a  fire  if  you  would  enjoy 
its  full  savour.  A  French  cook  will  serve  you 
potatoes  in  fifty  different  ways :  a  plain  boiled 
potato  is  the  only  sort  which  he  will  not  set  on 
your  table.  Or  he  will  give  you  a  "perdreau 
aux  choux"  where  the  delicate  flavor  of  the 
partridge  is  utterly  lost  in  the  coarse,  strong 
flavor  of  the  cabbage.  The  French  idea  of 
cooking  is  to  obliterate  all  distinctions  with  a 
democratic  sauce,  so  that  you  don't  know  what 
you  are  eating — fish  or  flesh  or  red  herring. 
In  England,  when  you  have  the  English  ideal 
of  cooking  carried  out  by  French  cooks,  you 


i84      ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—? 

get  as  near  perfection  as  is  possible  in  this 
faulty  world. 

Englishmen,  too,  are  justified  in  boasting 
that  since  they  began  to  drink  champagne,  they 
have  taught  Frenchmen  what  the  best  cham- 
pagne is.  Their  taste  has  selected  the  natural 
champagne,  the  champagne  not  sweetened 
with  added  sugar  nor  loaded  with  added  spirit, 
but  left  entirely  natural  or  pure — brut,  as  it  is 
labelled.  They  have  also  discovered  certain 
years  in  which  this  or  that  or  the  other  brand 
of  Champagne  is  at  its  best.  They  establish 
the  price  of  the  best  champagne  and  practically 
drink  all  of  it. 

They  have  exercised  much  the  same  influence 
on  cigars  and  tobacco.  It  was  the  English 
who  selected  Turkish  and  Egyptian  tobacco 
for  cigarettes  and  the  best  Cuban  tobacco  for 
cigars.  America,  too,  takes  a  great  many  ci- 
gars from  Havana,  but  Americans  seldom  study 
the  best  years  for  tobacco  as  the  English  study 
it.  In  the  best  years,  the  finest  growths  of  to- 
bacco are  nearly  all  taken  by  England. 

It  is  the  simple  truth  to  say  that  the  upper 
classes  have  made  life  in  England  the  most 
agreeable  in  the  world.  Moreover,  the  Eng- 
lish love  physical  beauty  more  than  other  na- 
tions :  they  love  it  in  dogs  and  cattle  and  horses, 
as  well  as  in  men  and  women — everywhere ; 
but  they  are  not  so  concerned  with  the  beauty 
of  the  spirit. 

In  fine,  the  average  sensual  man  who  is  rich 


ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—?      185 

finds  England  a  sort  of  paradise.  All  the  con- 
ditions of  life  are  more  pleasant  there  than 
elsewhere  and  the  service  is  easily  the  best  on 
earth.  But  when  one  has  said  this  one  has 
said  nearly  all  that  can  be  said  in  favor  of 
modern  England. 

The  perfection  of  physical  comfort  prevents 
the  ordinary  person  from  feeling  how  starved 
is  the  soul.  An  English  country  house  set  in 
an  English  park  on  a  summer  day  would  be 
almost  another  Eden  were  it  not  for  the  dire 
poverty  in  the  village  just  beyond  the  park 
gates  and  the  servility  and  degradation  of  the 
laboring-class.  There  is  a  story  of  how  a  man 
once  lived  without  a  shadow  and  became  ab- 
solutely miserable  because  of  his  peculiarity. 
For  many  a  year  now  England  has  lived  with- 
out a  soul,  and  no  one  except  here  and  there  a 
Carlyle,  has  even  noticed  the  loss.  There  are 
no  ideals  in  England,  no  enthusiasm,  no  high 
appreciation  of  art  or  literature,  no  impersonal 
striving.  There  is  absolute  veneration  for  the 
material  standard  of  value  and  whoever  would 
lower  it,  is  anathema;  but  on  the  other  hand, 
there  is  nothing  but  contempt  for  the  spiritual 
standard  of  value  and  it  is  debased  on  all  sides 
without  protest ;  yet  this  degradation  of  values 
was  once  known  as  the  sin  that  would  never 
be  forgiven.  The  Alfred  Austins  and  Bridges 
are  preferred  in  England  before  the  Brownings 
and  Swinburnes  and  Yeatses.  The  Johns  and 
Simes  and  Prides  are  almost  ignored ;  while  the 


i86      ENGLAND   OR  GERMANY—? 

Astors  and  Norfolks  are  honored  beyond  all 
measure.  The  Davidsons  and  Middletons  are 
fain  to  kill  themselves.  There  is  no  life  of 
the  spirit,  no  national  opera,  no  national  thea- 
tre :  no  passionate  intellectual  striving ;  no  pro- 
vision for  those  who  steer  humanity;  and  the 
soul  shrinks  into  itself  and  dwines  and  dies, 
and  neither  rich  viands  nor  vintage  wines  nor 
scented  cigars  can  call  it  back  to  life. 

Will  this  war  force  England  to  mend  her 
ways  and  free  the  spirit?  Who  shall  say? 
Will  she  get  rid  of  her  oligarchy  and  her  aris- 
tocratic judges  ?  Will  she  nationalize  her  land 
and  her  railways  and  free  herself  of  the  disease 
of  poverty  that  is  sapping  her  strength?  Will 
she  extend  and  heighten  her  intellectual  life; 
or  will  she  continue  to  be  as  Wordsworth  said : 
"a  fen  of  stagnant  waters"?  If  so,  why  should 
she  hold  the  sceptre  or  presume  to  steer  hu- 
manity ? 

For  myself  I  can  only  say  that  I  feel  towards 
her  in  this  strife  as  an  American.  It  is  more 
than  thirty  years  now  since  I  abjured  my  alle- 
giance to  her  and  her  monarch,  and  was  admit- 
ted to  the  American  Bar  in  Lawrence,  Kansas. 
I  owe  Germany  and  France  more  of  my  intel- 
lectual life  than  I  owe  England ;  but  because  I 
have  lived  a  good  deal  in  England  without  fall- 
ing over  head  and  ears  in  love  with  her.  Lord 
Northcliffe  and  his  henchmen  in  the  press  talk 
of  me  as  a  "traitor."  Ever  since  the  iniquitous 
South  African  war  I  have  felt  that  England's 


ENGLAND  OR  GERMANY—?      187 

success  and  England's  material  prosperity  tak- 
en together  with  her  low  spiritual  ideal  consti- 
tute the  gravest  danger  to  the  cause  of  civili- 
zation in  the  world!  lago  is  the  patron  saint 
of  England,  and  his  motto :  "Put  money  in  your 
purse,"  the  one  commandment  generally 
obeyed. 

The  other  day  I  came  across  a  statement  of 
the  American  author,  David  Graham  Phillips, 
with  which  I  find  myself  in  entire  agreement. 
He  wrote : 

"We  inherited  a  little  (of  our  civilization) 
from  France;  but  unfortunately,  more  from 
England.  I  think  the  strongest  desire  I  have 
is  to  see  my  country  shake  off  the  English  in- 
fluence— the  self-righteousness,  the  snobbish- 
ness. .  .  .  They  put  snobbishness  into  their 
church  service  and  create  a  snob-god  who  calls 
some  Englishmen  to  be  lords,  and  others  to  be 
servants.  ...  In  New  York,  in  one  class  with 
which  my  business  compels  me  to  have  much 
to  do,  the  craze  for  imitating  England  is  ram- 
pant. It  is  absurd  how  they  try  to  erect  snob- 
bishness into  a  virtue." 

The  End 


BY 
FRANK  HARRIS 

Elder  Conklin  and  Other  Stories 

MONTES   THE    MaTADOR 

Unpath'd  Waters 
The  Veils  of  Isis 


The  Bomb 
Great  Days 


The  Man  Shakespeare 
The  Women  of  Shakespeare 
Shakespeare  and  His  Love  (Play) 


Contemporary  Portraits 


Love  in  Youth  (in  Press) 

Oscar  Wilde:  His  Life  and  Confessions 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Daventry  (Drama) 


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